


To Resist a Current

by lapsi



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non Historically Compliant, Non Treasure Island Compliant, POV James Flint, Post Finale, Post-Season/Series 04, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-04-08 11:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14104863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsi/pseuds/lapsi
Summary: He levels the pistol at John Silver’s head, lips in the start of a snarl.The John he was acquainted with would have feigned indignation, raised his hands and his eyebrows and used Thomas’ pacifism to defuse the threat. Wheedled his way into a calmer state of affairs. Silver doesn’t flinch, an uncustomary flatness in his countenance as he returns the eye contact.It falls to James to speak, which he does with as much retaliatory coldness as he can muster. “Get out of my house.”Post series work, set ~18 months after the season four finale. John is drawn to Savannah, desperate for help. James is, in turn, pulled back to the chaos of piracy.





	1. Chapter 1

James doesn’t recognize the saddled horse tethered to his front gate. There’s bright candlelight escaping the cottage’s tiny side window, surprising for so late at night, and smoke still rises from the chimney. James turns the key in the door, but doesn’t press immediately inwards.  
  
Low, even conversation, yet concerning for being unanticipated and so late at night.  
  
James has call to be here. Ostensibly, he is Thomas’ manservant and carer, for a fictitious pathology of fits. He has his own quarters, an unused bed, by way of accounting for their shared occupation of this farmhouse. And despite the knowledge of many men of the plantation otherwise, this excuse is enough to placate questions. This is not Nassau: intimidation is not a tactically sound approach to quieting neighbourly queries. He must remind himself of this often, and Thomas reminds him more often still.  
  
It’s not the neighbours who concern him, though. It’s arrivals from further afield.  
  
James unlaces his shoes, tucking them by the door, shrugging off his coat as he steps through the short white-washed hallway. It’s cold out, yet the brisk walk uphill has his hair lank with perspiration. They have but one horse, and he left it for Thomas to reach the local library. He sees Thomas now, tranquil and engaged as he finishes a sentence that Flint is too distracted to catch. Opposite Thomas, faced away from James’ approach, is a man with dark hair.  
  
Just as recognition of the oiled ringlets is setting in, the unmistakable timbre of his old quartermaster’s voice breaks upon his ears. Just two words. “Three weeks.”

Thomas gives a distracted smile as he registers the arrival. “Ah, James. I--”  
  
He has already crossed the room, deftly opened the large drawer of a writing desk. Thomas is shocked silent by the mechanical clicking of a drawn hammer. He levels the pistol at John Silver’s head, lips in the start of a snarl.  
  
The John he was acquainted with would have feigned indignation, raised his hands and his eyebrows and used Thomas’ pacifism to defuse the threat. Wheedled his way into a calmer state of affairs. Silver doesn’t flinch, an uncustomary flatness in his countenance as he returns the eye contact.  
  
It falls to James to speak, which he does with as much retaliatory coldness as he can muster. “Get out of my house.”  
  
“It’s our house, and you are interrupting a conversation I do not intend to surcease,” Thomas says as he rises from the chair. Two steps, and he’s blocking the shot.  
  
Flint flinches the gun’s aim away from him at once, a horrified micro-expression.  
  
“This man reunited us after--” Thomas begins to reason.  
  
“Don’t speak for him.”  
  
Thomas has Flint’s hand by now, closed over the gun still. For a moment, he’s simply imploring non-verbally, letting the force of his goodness calm James’ temper. Then, “He’s here to see me. He’s my guest, and I will speak for him. Please put that thing away.”

“‘Guest’,” Flint doubts, between his teeth like the blackest of curses.  
  
Finally Silver speaks. “Madi was arrested thirteen days ago. She’ll be hanged before the year is out. I’m here to ask Thomas about his contacts in the resistance--”  
  
Flint scoffs and Silver’s expression darkens even further.  
  
“You lack the capacity to even feign concern? She was, supposedly, your friend,” John growls. Now Flint is really studying him, he can see the strangeness of Silver’s attire: respectable, even fashionable aside from being dishevelled. His facial hair is groomed and trimmed. There’s a cane instead of a crutch, leaning against the tabletop. The crude wooden peg has been replaced with a mostly concealed, more anatomical prosthetic.  
  
“Where was she arrested?” Flint asks, tucking the gun into his belt and folding his arms.  
  
Thomas, still lingering very close, frowns at the only partial de-escalation.  
  
“In Nassau. But they intend to try her in Port Royal,” Silver says.  
  
“Why Port Royal?” Flint asks.  
  
“They’ve charged her with conspiring with a Maroon known as Nanny. She’s been working to provide several rebel factions with munitions, information.”  
  
James feels a flare of pride, and then resentment at Silver for his unworthiness. “And you came out all this way to speak to Thomas?”  
  
“Do not mistake this for an initial or isolated act to save her,” John says quietly. “Since you left the plantation, Thomas has developed a network of abolitionist contacts all but unrivalled.”  
  
Flint tenses at the insinuation. He’d suspected Silver might have someone watching him, but the thought of his spies prying into Thomas’ affairs makes James feel like cocking his gun again.  
  
Silver continues purposefully. “I need to mount a legal defense to ensure that should all other undertakings fail, she has whatever modicum of judicial protection I can grant her. And I hoped I would be able to gain audience here, where other noteworthy activists would reject my arrival out of hand.” He’s speaking to Thomas again.  
  
“You have contacts with the Quakers. I’ve been informed that you were lobbying Governor James Oglethorpe last month. Not to mention your own legal education at Oxford.”  
  
Flint’s calculating wrath reemerges. “Thomas is not going to be involved in--”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Thomas interjects. “I’m free to involve myself with whomever I chose, James.”  
  
Flint is silent as packed explosive. 

Thomas’s will is as unrelenting. “Madi was your friend, as you said. And John returned you to me--”  
  
“He had known you were alive for weeks until he found a strategic use for the information. It was no act of kindness.”  
  
“You could be grateful I didn’t kill you,” John suggests grimly.  
  
“You could be grateful I haven’t killed you for any one of your innumerable betrayals in the time we’ve known one another,” Flint snaps in reply.  
  
“James,” Thomas reproaches.  
  
“I--” Silver looks down. Shame, or close enough to it. “I should have told you much sooner. But I did, always, intend on telling you,” he says, very softly. “You and I both know that you could make this nigh impossible. This is Madi’s life being threatened by the Empire you fought so ruthlessly against. Put aside your hatred of me, and think on that.”  
  
James thinks Silver is lying about informing him of Thomas’ survival. Perhaps. Still, the admission of wrongdoing soothes some dark fracture he hadn’t drawn breath over for a long time. “You haven’t got to know Thomas Hamilton. I cannot dictate which causes he affixes himself to.” He tries to keep some of the delicious golden warmth out of his tone. Speaking about Thomas Hamilton in present tense is an opiate.  
  
Thomas flushes faintly. “Shall we have a drink? John, I’d imagine you could use one. There’s a spare bed that is not particularly large, but if you could make do--”  
  
There’s two black and humorless smiles.  
  
“Oh. A seaman. Of course you can make do.”  
  
Silver looks down. “I don’t want to impose upon you both. I--I am under no illusions about the terms James--” he seems to reconsider the use of a given name. “The terms we parted on.”  
  
Flint’s arms are still folded. “At the fort, when we conducted the exchange of prisoners for Max. You suggested, hypothetically you said, Thomas had been secreted away. You knew, didn’t you?”  
  
“No. I didn’t.”  
  
“You suspected, then. You had an inkling, you derived some--”  
  
“I would _never_ have told you without absolute certainty. You couldn’t have survived false hope. ...I sent a man. They returned, but not before you had turned yourself over to Eleanor Guthrie. And from there," his eyes darken, and his jaw flickers with muscles as he forces his next words aloud. "From there, Madi was dead, as far as I knew. I couldn’t give up my greatest ally in the war to avenge her. I couldn’t bring myself to inform you, in that moment. I would have told you. Given time.”  
  
James’ eyes flicker to the roof, and then across to Thomas. Thomas is listening with terrifying intensity. Despite John Silver sitting opposite, he finds himself reaching out for his lover’s hand, reasserting his existence with physical sensation. He nods.  
  
“We will minimize Thomas’ exposure while utilizing his contacts.”  
  
Thomas raises one eyebrow, expression exaggerated by the firelight catching but half his face .  
  
Flint tries not to frown about the argument he already knows he’s going to have. He speaks to his once partner, as level and single-minded as ever. “And then you and I, we’ll free Madi. Together.” 

Silver’s eyes mist. He blinks several times, then bows his head. He looks younger than he did when all James saw was the conniving obstacle of a thief.  
  
James walks to the barren drink cabinet, pulling the gin off the shelf and pouring three glasses. Thomas has retaken his seat, which means that after James has set down the glasses, he has to back up into the bedroom to fetch a chair for himself. They do not entertain.  
  
“A little more than year out and you already have enough books to stock a moderately reputable university,” Silver is saying in a shaky voice as he returns.  
  
Flint gives a wry smile. Their dining room is half bookshelf, and all of Thomas’ writing paraphernalia is out on the corner desk, stacks of papers and pamphlets and letters.  
  
“A very poor university,” Thomas says, assessing his collection.  
  
“With an excellent poetry department, and of whose alumni have dismal business acumen,” Flint says under his breath as he sits.  
  
“I have several of John Locke’s works that businessmen should and have not read,” Thomas says tartly. Then he smiles, gin raised to his lips.  
  
“How many were arrested along with Madi? Any faces familiar to me?” Flint asks as he crosses his arms, not quite ready to let the conversation become so casual. 

John seems relieved to turn back to the topic strangling him. “Two that you’d know. Eme. Julius’ second-in-command, Farrow. Countless others in Port Royal. They seek to flush out the Maroons by prosecuting their allies. ...Max was nearly arrested. She has enough political sway that the charge went away, though she couldn’t manage it for her conspirators.”  
  
“Max?” Flint asks, squinting up.  
  
“She’d been passing information to Madi. Being a legitimate British colony, allegedly, we now have naval factions passing through en route to the more troublesome outposts. Secrets go into establishments in Nassau and slip out concealed within the lacy décolletage of our perpetual hostess. ...the two have becomes close,” John says bitterly, running a hand all the way from the dark hair at his forehead, to the tip of his beard. Flint sees his fingers trembling. Silver has already finished his gin.  
  
Flint walks around, pours more generously this time. He sees the opening, to lay a hand on his shoulder, be Silver’s support and reassurance as they so often ended up on The Walrus. He keeps his hands to himself. “And you haven’t killed her to mire her dangerous influence on Madi?”  
  
“I would have to kill half of Nassau town into the bargain, to avoid reprisals. Least of which would include Anne Bonny and our Governor.”  
  
James notices Thomas’ poorly concealed horror, and feels guilt wrap a vice about his chest. It hardens him to the comfortable dynamic. “Perhaps you could have her sold into indentured servitude.”  
  
Silver grits his teeth in response, draining the gin. “Were the conditions there so awful?”  
  
He notices Thomas giving him a warning look. “I simply wasn’t accustomed to following orders after so long of exclusively issuing them.” Thomas’ tired smile is reward enough for his restraint. “...I hardly staged an insurrection. The transition to more open plan settlement was already in motion.”  
  
“You’re five miles from the plantation.”  
  
Flint gives an unyielding smile. “Very open plan.”  
  
Thomas chuckles, a small refined sound learned amongst a better class of people. “We’ll talk in the morning. Naught to be done at this hour, and no discussion that wouldn’t be better conducted by fresh minds. When are you working tomorrow, James?” 

Silver can’t conceal his interest. “A real job? Farming?”  
  
“I assist the local tradesmen with security measures.”  
  
“Oh. I thought you’d be engaged in something less… risky.”  
  
“I’m not fighting off would-be thieves. I’m devising trade routes and advising them on security protocol,” James explains, haughtily. “What are you doing with yourself now, _Long John Silver_?”  
  
It was intended to rile, but John is very straightforward in reply. “Now that Nassau’s preeminent establishments have been seceded to legitimate concerns, there’s need of a less discriminative tavern.”  
  
“You’re… tending bar,” Flint deduces disbelievingly.  
  
“If it was good enough for Eleanor Guthrie,” Silver says under his breath.  
  
Understanding comes to Flint’s sharp gaze. “So, you’ve taken it upon yourself to facilitate and govern Nassau’s black market? ...do you recall what _happened_ to Eleanor Guthrie?”  
  
“Yes. And I have learned from her every example.”  
  
Flint folds his arms, dissatisfied with the answer. He should not be getting protective of John Silver, not after what transpired between them. “Why come to Savannah for Thomas’ contacts, when you are embroiled in your own deep, dark web of collusion?”  
  
“I have contacts aplenty, but not a shred of legitimacy among them. I need a lawyer with a veneer of respectability enough to reach the higher echelons of Port Royal’s political sphere.”  
  
“You hear that James? I’m a source of legitimacy,” Hamilton murmurs, not sounding entirely convinced.  
  
“Only compared to a barman in Nassau,” James returns keenly. Thomas smiles, and he cannot help but do so too.  
  
All three finish their drinks embroiled in thought. Thomas’ consideration of Silver is too compassionate for James’ comfort.  
  
“I can excuse myself to bed if you both wish to discuss events in your time apart that you may not wish to air in the presence of a stranger…” Thomas begins to offer.  
  
Flint is just beginning to open his mouth to dismiss the idea, when John beats him to it: “Strange as it may seem, you are no stranger to me. I cohabited, closely, with the ghost of you. If anything, the scales should be evened on our acquaintance of one another.”  
  
Flint frowns as Thomas looks mildly flattered.  
  
“Well, as much as I look forward to getting to know you, we should all rest. ...there’s food in the kitchen, a stable out back. I’ll show you to it,” Thomas volunteers.  
  
“I’m dressed for the temperature,” Flint says, standing. Silver reaches for his cane, and rises too. If there’s trepidation, he disguises it well.  
  
Thomas stands as well. He gives a very polite, silent warning as he leans over to brush James’ hair back. “Good night,” he wishes Silver pleasantly.  
  
John murmurs the same in reply.

 

 

Flint doesn’t tell Silver to follow him. He doesn’t slow down to allow for the limp he’s sure Silver will still be accomodating, doesn’t hold the door for him. He pulls his boots on unlaced and rounds the house, then folds his arms and waits for Silver to catch up, untie his horse, and guide it through the gate.  
  
“You know I will not risk losing him again,” Flint says, softly.  
  
He sees John’s hand holding his horse’s rein drop inside his coat, presumably to a knife. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”  
  
“Your presence here forces me to risk _everything_ ,” he hisses. “You need to save Madi. I can’t dissuade you of that, nor do I wish to. But believe me when I say I will not be allowing boundaries to be crossed and lines blurred between your way of life, and his. I will kill you if it becomes necessary to protect Thomas. Don’t doubt that.”  
  
“Why would I doubt that? You loathe me. Not to mention, you drew a gun on me not half an hour ago,” Silver says, squinting, hand slipping away from the interior of his greatcoat.  
  
James grits his teeth and gestures towards the stables. “There’s water from the pump on your left there.” He points again into the darkness. “The outhouse is another several feet further than that. Spare room is your first door on the left as you reenter. Lock the door behind you.” Without another word, he takes off back to the house.

 

 

For a moment, he thinks Thomas asleep, lying so still in their shared bed, eyes closed. He’s aged beautifully, James thinks. The tan of farmwork is already fading back to the bookwormish complexion James is accustomed to. Thomas has kept his hair short, the blonde weathered to gray around his temples. It faintly reminds him of the absurd wig he used to wear when they first became acquainted.  
  
Then, eyes still closed, the disgraced nobleman speaks. “Now I see why you held onto your anger against him for so long.”  
  
James frowns, pulling off his outer layers of clothing quickly. “I haven’t held onto anything. I have had no reason to forgive his actions against me.”  
  
“You seem to have only held onto resentment for one action,” Thomas corrects.  
  
James pauses at the edge of the bed, then leans to blow out the lamp. “It was a significant one.”  
  
“You felt betrayed.”  
  
“I _was_ betrayed.”  
  
“You were in love,” Thomas explains simply.  
  
James is rendered mute. Eventually he finds his voice, spluttering the words out indignantly. “Pardon me?”  
  
“The way you speak with him--”  
  
“I considered him my friend and he took in hand the source of my greatest suffering, and he worked it to subjugate me.”  
  
“He healed you of your greatest suffering.”  
  
“He could have healed me long before he did. He challenged me, ordered men after me, to _kill_ me, while all the whilst knowing that I would have surrendered myself, surrendered everything, to be returned to your side. And I don’t know why.”  
  
Thomas breathes deeply, meditating upon the thought.  
  
Upon reunion James had informed him, largely through innuendo and creative exclusion, the parts of his war on civilization he could bear to be known. Captain Flint, the semi-fictionalized monstrosity, had preceded him even into plantation within Savannah. James felt compelled to share a little of his own account. Silver was briefly touched upon, but their falling out was largely unexplored. Flint tries to reassure himself with that ignorance. Thomas, for all his emotional intelligence, can still be wrong.  
  
But when he speaks, there’s a certain ring of truth to it: “I would imagine because he dreaded handing you over to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's coming up on a year since Black Sails ended and apparently I need a therapy session of story writing.
> 
> I wasn't even really set on publishing this, but perhaps someone else would like to read it. And the prospect of such will force me to actually pay attention to the quality of my writing.


	2. Chapter 2

Flint rises before dawn from the luxury of his lover’s arms, leaving Thomas slumbering. Thomas Hamilton invariably sleeps soundly, and aims at a solid eight hours each night, a measure that Flint has reached but a handful of times in the past decade.   
  
The difference in schedules is strangely no source of contention between them. The luxury of living with Thomas Hamilton’s eccentricities has Flint grateful as a pious man every day. If that means leaving bed to collect eggs and dairy alone in the dewy chill of morning, he must embrace the domesticity wholeheartedly.   
  
Today, he skips the morning chores in favour of drafting a letter asking for an excusal of absence that may or may not be granted. It will be taken regardless.   
  
He expects Silver’s spectre to flit inquisitively through as soon as the sun rises, but he is alone in his writing. He saw the deep shadows beneath the younger man’s eyes last night, even in the dimmed lighting. Silver is going to need rest if his intellect is going to conjure Madi away from a stronghold such as Port Royal.   
  
James rides through low-hanging mist and drapery of Spanish moss towards the small township, then turns into the Musgrove’s estate. Mary will be awake. She scarcely sleeps, from what James can tell. Perpetually organizing, even the state of her own property. She reminds him, intensely, of Eleanor, though the farthest he ever saw Nassau’s fence go insofar as domestic chores was to clean glassware at her own bar. Mary is always tending livestock or harvesting from her garden, today being no exception. He hears the spray of milk into a bucket, and rounds into her cow shed clearing his throat.

The conversation does not go well. Mary Musgrove is dubious of his timing, with several crucial supply lines being concurrently established, and insinuates ingratitude that he not cling to any employment offered given his position.   
  
James finds himself teetering on the line of good manners that he crossed from McGraw to Flint, and then most of the way back again. He thinks, as a naval officer, he kept his temper in check a good ninety-nine-percent of his time spent in human interaction. As Flint, his ratio of self-control probably scarcely made it into the black. Here, though he goes by neither of the two names (he took the surname Gates, which he hopes Silver’s spies did not find out) he feels himself cognizant of the two personas as they interplay.   
  
As a young man, he was no saint. Obsessed with outward appearance, deferential to any authority that could elevate him, and ruthlessly calculating. But that was not the state his life as James McGraw ended at. Thomas had, in every sense, elevated him. And inversely, the loss of Thomas had created the merciless black ravine of Flint.   
  
He has not embraced the darkness for a long time, but with the appearance of Silver he felt himself reverting to old habits wholecloth. And now, to free Madi, he knows which man he has inhabited he would trust with the task. His motivation for keeping Thomas out of the effort is two-fold. Thomas will not, must not, become acquainted with Captain Flint. His conversation with Mary ends unsatisfyingly, but he hasn’t time to waste pleading for his livelihood.   
  
He rides home. 

The mist has abated, and the sun is warm on the back of his neck as his horse meanders along the cut track uphill to their home. The errand took most of an hour, so he’s unsurprised to see smoke rising from the chimney above the kitchen. Yet, the reminder that Silver is alone with Thomas has him urgent with apprehension. He kicks his muddied boots off outside, hearing voices again. The two should have the decency to lock themselves in separate rooms and wait to speak until he may supervise the topics of conversation.   
  
No such censorship has occurred. He grimaces when he hears his own name. Worse still, in the context of his preference for early breakfasts. Too personal already.  
  
“Ah, there you are,” Thomas murmurs lovingly, over a frying pan sizzling with eggs. Flint had to teach him to cook breakfast shortly after their release from the plantation. There is seemingly no end to the menial blindspots of nobility. Even on the plantation, food preparation was deemed work for servants rather than inmates. At least it’s not Silver cooking, he concedes to himself.

John looks better-rested, and washed judging by the heaviness of his curls. He’s out of the travelling clothes he arrived in, leaning comfortably against a bench wearing an oversized linen shirt. Flint examines it and turns to Thomas.  
  
“Is that your shirt?”  
  
“His clothing needed to be washed, given he travelled all this way without staying at an inn. They will dry shortly in this weather.”  
  
Silver casts an amused look in Flint’s direction, a transparent attempt to foster connection between them. The silent amazement at the idea of actually washing clothes worn for over a week. Flint is in no mood to indulge more camaraderie over the contrast between this lifestyle and the Spartan living of high-seas piracy. Especially not with Thomas discerningly watching any interactions between them.  
  
“Have you eaten?”  
  
James nods, and then reconsiders. “I’d like to join you for breakfast.” If only that his presence will allow for some modicum of control over their conversation.  
  
“Are the merchant vessels still docked?”  
  
“All but The Hazard, and I believe she was headed south.”  
  
“Good. I’ll seek passage to Philadelphia with one of the crews. John informs he has a ship waiting on the Savannah River bound to return to Nassau.”  
  
“Philadelphia?” James muses. “Not Boston?”  
  
“I believe Philadelphia will be my best option to recruit a liberal lawyer, willing to travel to Port Royal.”  
  
“Perhaps I can assist with their willingness. I ...liquidated assets, and have in my possession gems amounting to the value of approximately one thousand Spanish dollars. Whatever price their assistance costs, make it clear it can be paid.” Silver looks down. “...furthermore, I would like to pay you both for your time, and recompense any damage I do to your long-term employment here.”  
  
“Don’t be absurd,” Thomas rebukes gently. 

Silver is silent, examining a heavy, carved ring on his hand. He clears his throat before he speaks. “Money is of no object to me.”   
  
Flint gives a cold chuckle.   
  
Silver’s brows twitch sharply down but he continues as if he didn’t hear, eyes still on the intricate metalwork. “I took the position in Nassau not because I sought to skim from deals occurring, or because I was too proud to take the work of a cripple, but because I appreciated the influence that the Guthries had wielded over those who knew no law. It is a unique position: my mediation stops feuds from becoming bloody, I dissuade crews from prizes that would warrant repercussions, and my threats of an embargo against those who do not listen to reason prevent Nassau falling into the violence it is wont to return to. ...A side effect of my righteous work is that I have become very wealthy. For a bartender.”  
  
“Considering that you know I, singularly, could locate one of the greatest caches of treasure ever concealed, it’s odd to hear you offer charity my way,” Flint says, a proud grimace on his features.  
  
“What treasure?” Thomas asks, intensely thoughtful. He gently nudges James aside as he carries the pan through to the already set table.  
  
“Now, _that_ is a very long story,” Silver murmurs unhappily as he follows through.  
  
“Port Royal may well have the most corrupt governance and judicial system of any colony--” Thomas starts.  
  
“I’ve tried bribery,” John says as he sits.  
  
Thomas carefully portions the food, taking his time before he formulates a rejoinder. “No offence, but if you came to me to seeking the propriety of my contacts, you have not been in a position to ‘try’ bribery. Accepting a bribe from a member of the lower classes would be repulsively vulgar. Accepting a bribe from a member of higher society would be eminently political.”  
  
John’s chin is raised proudly. “I disguised my poor social standing. I am not so naive as to approach them as a member of the ‘lower class’,” he retorts, too harsh for Flint’s liking. John isn’t going to speak to Thomas that way in his own home.  
  
“James,” Thomas mutters, squeezing his arm. He notices his own fists are clenched around his knife and fork.  
  
Thomas continues blithely. “I did not mean to be impolite. Let me be clearer: You are charming, and eloquent, and well-mannered, and would not fool for one second the most undiscerning gentleman into believing you were of his societal standing.”  
  
“You’d be surprised of the lies I’ve managed to sell in my time,” Silver says, setting down hard the cutlery he’d been struggling with.  
  
“I’m sure I would be. The fact remains that geographical removal from England does not erase the nitpicking social graces of home. Men cling to their identity as landed gentry because it differentiates them from the rabble they are surrounded by. Perhaps society is more rigorously stratified because of this fact. Men must, without surrounding context, be able to judge their fellows. And these tells are deliberately obfuscated and meticulous and absurd. They are not designed to be studied, they’re designed to be constantly imparted throughout formative years. Unless you’ve spent time attending public school and high society dinner parties, they will be able to pick you regardless of how monied and well-dressed and intelligent you are.”  
  
John’s jaw ticks.  
  
“Bribery won’t work. Madi is not a political opponent in the same way you were,” James interrupts. “Her public hanging is worth more than simply the elimination of an enemy supplier. It is a message that, no matter where you are, how well-protected you may consider yourself, you are within England’s terrible hold. With a war being waged, even the appearance of leniency would be political suicide. You know that situation, well, Thomas. It was the sword upon which you fell, and that was for much loftier reasons than money.”  
  
John relaxes. Flint is amazed by his own tact. Pacifying tension with distraction and rhetoric, just as Silver used to. He doesn’t do this. He doesn’t care whether people argue, in fact he likes arguing because normally he’s the best in the room at it. But he does not wish to see an argument between Thomas and John. The thought makes him sick for reasons he doesn’t intend on exploring too thoroughly.

All three fall silently to their meal. Silver eats fast, distracted with thought, but clearly underfed. Eventually, Flint continues. “...what I want to know is how Max managed to worm her way between England’s grasping fingers. I assume it was the stick rather than the carrot.”  
  
“Stick…? Oh. Yes. It was raised that whichever ship attempted to transport her to Port Royal would be hounded relentlessly by Captain Rackham and his fearless enforces Mary Read and Anne Bonny. I’d imagine the threat was fairly intimidating, considering the reputation those three have cultivated over the past odd year. Not to mention, Mr. Featherstone spoke on her behalf.”  
  
“Why didn’t Madi threaten the same?”  
  
“I have deliberately retired myself from the public eye as much as possible, while Rackham has stoked the flames of his own infamy ceaselessly. And… I was not in Nassau when the arrest occurred.” There’s rare guilt on Silver’s features. He’s stopped eating, though he seemed ravenous when he first sat. He takes a few seconds to order the next words. “I was meeting with a Maroon in Jamaica’s interior. I had been attempting to dissuade her contacts from accepting her help.”  
  
“Behind her back,” Flint states, temper fraying. “This, again.”  
  
“Yes. This, again.” John grinds out between his gritted teeth, glaring right back at Flint. “I warned her of British intention to stamp out any sympathizers to the Windward Maroons’ cause. She would not listen to reason.”  
  
“It’s not reason. It’s self-preservation. She is more committed to this cause than you are capable of being to _anything_ .”  
  
“Right. I should have bowed to her fate of being nobly hanged. She could have earned the approval of every self-destructive fanatic in the New World. What a terrible man I am.”  
  
”Saving her isn’t going to mend the trust between you. If we free her, she will not want to see you.”  
  
“I don’t imagine she will. She may curse me with every breath from her lips and I will be glad that she continues to draw them. As do you,” John growls.  
  
James’ brow furrows at the comparison, with Thomas looking on knowingly. “It’s hardly the same betrayal. You sent men to kill me, if you recall.”  
  
“Madi’s life was on the line thanks to your arrogance,” Silver growls, chair scraping back. “Forgive me for wanting guarantees of your interference being discontinued.”  
  
“If you had told me Thomas was alive I would have been long gone--”  
  
“James,” Thomas intervenes, not entirely gently.  
  
He stops, unwilling expose Thomas to the anger that used to consume him. “Your relationships are your own business,” he says, flatly, sitting down and staring into his half eaten eggs.  
  
“There’s no relationship to be anyone’s business. But I will save her,” Silver murmurs. His voice is decrepit with misery, the sounds barely passing his lips. James doesn’t mistake that for lack of commitment to the cause. That, is undeniable. John sits down, and starts in on his food again. 

After breakfast is awkwardly cleaned and cleared, Thomas occupied himself packing. James doesn’t see much cause to do so himself. The things he’ll really need, a pistol, a good sword, are all better acquired in Nassau. He bothers to stow some of his more practical clothing in a bag, sharp contrast to his lover’s finicking over the contents of his wardrobe. Thomas is putting together his finest clothing, not that there’s a great deal of it. The pieces purchased when Thomas met recently with Ogelthorpe. His wig. A fine wool coat that makes his eyes seem even more blue.   
  
James isn’t surprised, but he feels a tug of dissatisfaction at the changes Thomas must enact in order make a good impression upon his learned contacts. He lingers in the doorway, feeling the imminent separation far more acutely. He’s scarcely been ten miles from Thomas since their reunion. He closes the space between them with two steps, pulls the taller man upright. Thomas’ eyebrows are raised curiously, lips moving half to ask. Then James kisses him. It’s passionate at once, arms around Thomas to hold him tight as a drowning man, lips pressed open against his. He’s panting, panicked at his recklessly made plans. The only solace is the silence of this perfect kiss, with this perfect man.   
  
Thomas brushes his hair back, pulls back to meet his eyes. “Are you sure--”  
  
James shakes his head to silence the question he can’t answer. “Please be safe.”  
  
“I’m going to Philadelphia.”  
  
“Radical politics is a dangerous game. No matter the locale. You first cast yourself into danger in London, of which there cannot be many more civilized places in the entire world.”  
  
“You are going to attempt to free a woman from high security in the heavily fortified Port Royal, via the notoriously violent Nassau, which I understand still harbours many enemies to you, and where your identity as a wanted pirate is widely known. And you want _me_ to be safe in Philadelphia where I will attempt to _lobby an attorney_ .”  
  
“Yes,” James insists, squeezing him tighter.  
  
“I have no intention of leaving you. I will be safe. Promise me that you will too.”  
  
“I promise you,” Flint murmurs, moves in to kiss him again.  
  
Thomas’ fingers move through his hair. James grew it out, at Thomas’ behest. It hangs just below his chin now, though he tends to keep it tied back when he’s not within his home. Thomas’ large, velvet soft palms are on his cheeks, pulling James back from the kiss, index finger tracing his cheekbone. The forced gaze is searching, unrelenting. Thomas stumbles uncharacteristically now. “I--I have lost enough. I would not endure losing you again. Do you understand me?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I love you, James.”  
  
He blinks, trying to move in again, held by Thomas still. “I love you too,” he returns.  
  
“Don’t make an enemy of John Silver,” Thomas murmurs. “I am counting on him to keep you safe.”  
  
“Keep me--” James tries to keep a straight face. If that serves Thomas’ peace of mind, he will endure the farce of John Silver playing his bodyguard.  
  
“James, I’m serious.”  
  
“I will try not to make an enemy of John Silver.”  
  
Thomas kisses him, now. It’s firmer than usual. Thomas’ fingers scrape back from his forehead and lace into his hair, keeping his chin tilted. Almost possessive. James could kiss him forever except that there’s the unmistakable syncopated steps of Silver approaching across the sonorous hardwood floor. He scowls, taking half a step away from Thomas, who wraps an arm around his waist and and prevents him from distancing any further. 

John clears his throat before he steps into view of the open doorway. “I saddled the… the horses,” John informs them, a hesitant break in his words as his eyes flicker tentatively over the two men in their sideways embrace. He instead studies the open leather trunk. “I assume you’ll want the buggy to carry your cases.”  
  
“Thank you, John,” Thomas says, warmly. James feels a hand brushing up his spine. He’s not sure if it’s intended on being soothing.  
  
Silver dips his head a little and ducks away. The prosthetic metal thud sounds less pronounced on exit.

 

 

John rides ahead of them, considerably faster without being confined to the singular meandering carriage-worthy route. It leaves James to sit beside Thomas in the open buggy, a distance worthy of public acceptability. Still, in the crisp yellow sunlight, through the swathes of cotton, the company is exquisite.   
  
James is burdened with nostalgia for every second that slips past him unarrested.  
  
As they approach the true boundaries of the township, dread flips his stomach repeatedly until he feels like throwing up his late breakfast; considering the storms he has been through without losing a meal, it’s an unwelcome omen. He wants to speak to Thomas, to intimate himself so thoroughly that physical absence will be meaningless to their connection. He doesn’t say a word, and neither does Thomas.   
  
They tether the horse, and Thomas departs to make arrangements for the house and animals to be cared for by one of his friends at the local congregation, leaving James to barter passage for Thomas with the small cluster of merchant vessels docked. He recognizes Silver’s ship, at once. The Orion stands out among the smaller vessels, and even with every gun hatch closed it speaks of a formidable opponent in battle. Probably a full crew on board. Silver was not taking the chance of being apprehended en route. Some small irony in Silver commandeering the very ship that once drove them into a tempest, though Flint is in no mood to unpick allegory.  
  
He tries to ignore the pirate vessel, and finds a familiar merchant in his rented room by the dock. His position has had him advising this very man before, and he trusts both the ship, and the weathered Scotsman who helms it. He pays for Thomas’ journey fairly, no bartering on either side, handing over the bulk of his savings from the last several months of constant employment. The ship is porting overnight at Charles Town, then Philadelphia before arrival in New York. He doesn’t care for the idea of Thomas docking outside the town in which Miranda died, but there’s little he can do about it considering the paltry money he has on hand. 

He’s back in view of the tethered horse and cart, stepping around a roaming rooster, when he spots Thomas and John in close counsel. They’re positioned furtively, to his eye, shielded by a stack of crates that is being loaded on board the same ship Thomas will be travelling on. He slows his pace, matching step with a dockhand carrying hessian wrapped cotton bail, and keeping to his shadow. Neither man is looking his way. The third unsettling conversation occurring without him. Both voices are so familiar that the words are easily made out when he approaches the wall they stand against. John’s has the ring of attempted persuasion. He’ll be disappointed by how impregnable Thomas Hamilton’s mind can be.  
  
“--wait on the ship. I need his mind, not his sword.”  
  
“If you’re in danger, he will put himself in danger,” Thomas returns, frank but hushed. “It is imperative that your plans do not--” at this point, Silver must see him, and Thomas must recognize the warning. Both turn, to James Flint’s folded arms and unamused expression.  
  
He tries to veil his ire somewhat. “Are we in tactical discussions? Perhaps we could go somewhere more private than the back of a loading dock.”  
  
Thomas looks regretful at once. He recognizes the betrayal for what it is. Good.  
  
“We have to leave. You and I can speak on board,” John states, eyes unemotive. He turns to Thomas again. “I appreciate your intellect, but the detail of these plans requires expertise you do not have.”  
  
Thomas raises an eyebrow dangerously. “I’m not talking about maneuvers or--”  
  
“I promise, I will keep him safe.”  
  
Thomas nods, satisfied.  
  
Now it’s James’ turn to raise an eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”  
  
“I did not come here to rip a good friend from the peace I tried to bestow upon him, to have him killed before my eyes,” John says, softly. He leans heavily on his cane, eyes darting to Flint. “I need your help. I know that. But I also need you to survive this. Now, may we board? Please?”  
  
“Go ahead,” Thomas murmurs. As close to a blessing as it could be. Silver murmurs a thank you, waiting for Flint. He hefts his bag over his shoulder, grimacing with the weight of the departure. Thomas risks brushing his shoulder.  
  
“I’ll be with you soon.”  
  
“I--” the dock workers are back, and both men stare powerlessly. James licks his lips. “Take care.”  
  
“I will. So will you.”  
  
“There’s no such thing as too soon. I won’t be risking that,” James promises. He lingers hopelessly another second, and then turns abruptly before his nerve fails. 

John tries to catch up with him, only succeeds when they reach the sloped landing and the waiting longboat. Flint swings his bag onto the vessel and steps elegantly aboard. He’s isolated in anger for a moment, but then with a huff of frustration turns to offer a hand to Silver.  
  
“I can get--”  
  
“Just take the damn help.”  
  
Silver clasps his forearm. Flint hefts him up off the muddy planks of wood that pass for a boarding point. They settle, and each takes an oar, though their rhythm is uneven and the boat moves haphazardly. James is too distracted by a single figure standing on the shore, growing ever more distant.


	3. Chapter 3

Silver struggles up the side of the ship like a spider in downpour. Flint sees the man who hauls him upright, but doesn’t recognize the crewman’s features. Silver told him to wait; the multitude of possible reasons why avail themselves to him as he squints up the side of the imposing ship. Silver’s face appears. “Come up,” he calls overboard.  
  
Flint climbs up, feeling old familiar muscle groups in his shoulders grind to action. He thinks about Silver’s sentiment that his sword would not be needed. That seems unlikely. The question is whether his sword will be worth a damn. He is exercised from involuntary manual labour, and then the voluntary manual labour building parts of the cottage, and his housework. It’s not the same physical demands as his life on the high seas had met him with.   
  
He’s occupied with concerns over his capacity for battle as he heaves his bag overboard, and then sets feet on the deck. It’s not really a ship yet, in this river, sails furled. It’s a phantasm of the thing it will be on the ocean currents. But thin as the tonic is, it revives Flint to his old self as much as Silver’s presence did. His feet set apart, and one-by-one he evaluates the crew members within sight.   
  
He mistakes a tall, bearded man for Dooley for the briefest moment, before remembering abruptly that he shot dead the only man who sided with him over Silver. Nowhere near his worst sin. A few of the men he recognizes from Nassau, but none of The Walrus’ crew.   
  
He isn’t sure why that has him breathing easier. Then he sees the man who Silver is engaged in harried conversation with, and any relief extinguishes. Israel Hands is not looking at the man addressing him. He is wild with animosity.  
  
Flint at once senses a changed dynamic between the two. Hands’ absolute deference has been eroded. He pulls his bag down and wishes he had a sword. Or a pistol. He tucked the firearm into a case, and left in Thomas’ trunk. Probably a foolish precaution, given how unlikely Thomas is to use it even if his life were explicitly threatened. Then Silver says something more, and Hands turns abruptly away. Flint hears orders being shouted. If anyone was studying him, they’re now too busy readying the ship for departure.   
  
“You’re captaining the ship?”   
  
“I’m paying these men a wage. They didn’t vote for me,” Silver mutters, eyes darting around.   
  
“These are the men you intend to use to rescue Madi?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“A ragtag group of the desperately unemployed and temperamentally unstable?” Flint asks, hawkishly watching Hands.   
  
Silver rolls his eyes and sets off towards the great cabin. Flint looks to shore, and is unable to see Thomas. He follows.  

On the journey to Savannah over a year ago, Flint was chained wrist and ankle in the darkness of the hold. He knew the crew then; they gave him dark stares and whispered, tossed food and drink to him reluctantly like they hoped he’d perish before arrival. They would have happily set upon him, but that there would be reprisals from Long John Silver were anything to happen to this prisoner.   
  
James, for his part, had found them easy to ignore. He was alone in a dark reverie. He did not believe, did not allow himself to believe that Silver was being honest about the plantation. He scarcely thought about the logistics of Thomas’ survival, or the possibility of seeing him.   
  
Instead, he picked relentlessly at Silver’s side of the story looking for flaws. Just because he couldn’t initially understand the motivation behind the cruel lie did not make it true. Silver had kept him alive for some malignant purpose.   
  
He still disbelieved when he first saw Thomas before him. He couldn’t risk believing, not until he had fingers dug deep into Thomas’ mortal shape, his moving ribs, his warmth and weight and vitality. It still seems some fantastical resurrection, orchestrated by Silver’s influence, when in reality Thomas had lived and toiled every year of James and Miranda’s mourning. 

Flint sizes up the room that Silver has occupied, wondering which active captaincy the ship was borrowed or bartered from. There’s a large tabletop strewn with maps and papers and sketches. He is drawn to the paraphernalia at once, picking up a map.  
  
“This is before the earthquake,” he says upon examination.   
  
“There’s another sketch of the area after, though the cartography is of a lower quality,” Silver says without looking back.   
  
“What is the purpose of a defunct map of Port Royal?”   
  
Silver has rounded the table, found a bottle of rum, and splashed a generous quantity into a silver goblet. Flint thinks he sees his hand shaking.   
  
“Your leg?” he asks, straightening up and eying off the prosthetic suspiciously.   
  
“No.”   
  
“Then--”   
  
“If you turn your eye to the depth markings on the before map. Then after.”   
  
Flint is engrossed by the mental exercise, as Silver knew he would be. “The sandbar is new.”   
  
“That’s not the important part.”   
  
He frowns and leans in closer. Silver has finished the rum, and stepped in closer with a familiar smug eyebrow tilt. The irresistible electricity of Silver’s intellectual challenge. Flint hears Thomas’ words in an unwelcomely echo. No. He was never _“in love”_ . He pores over the sketch until the ghostly recollection passes.   
  
“The depth around the coastline here is precisely the same on both charts.”   
  
“And…?”   
  
“And the entire rest of the passage of approach on the south-east is far deeper than before the earthquake struck. Sand has been washed west and caught amongst the reef here, and flowed down the bay… here… so… so these depths are simply copied over from the last map, because no fool would ever seek to dock at alongside the town’s flank when there is a perfectly good deep water port to the town’s west.”   
  
Silver gives a humorless smile. “And I thought you might be rusty.”   
  
“And I didn’t know you understood what the numbers on nautical maps refer to.” Flint is pleased to see Silver’s tiny, genuine chuckle. “You think you can sail right through what was once impassably shallow. How, exactly, with no cover and with Fort Charles’ fifty odd guns all levelled your way, do you intend to survive the approach to the township?”   
  
“We will approach under cover of night, flying English colours. By my reckoning, as we pass Great Plumb Point here, critical examination of our ship and of our trajectory will begin. By Little Plumb Point we will be firmly within range, and whatever measures we have taken to disguise ourselves as a merchant vessel will not stand to scrutiny.”   
  
“And your ship will be fired upon, and even with the most violent barrage The Orion is capable of returning, you will be swiftly sunk. If you had The Revenge, perhaps you could raze enough of the fort to get close, but unless you have retaken her from the Spanish, _again_ , I do not like your odds.”   
  
“I don’t like them either. And I’m far too cowardly to enter into battles in which I do not like the odds. ...here,” Silver murmurs, pulling at another slip of paper. Flint sees the proud smile flicker, penetrating the distraught haze that has shrouded Silver.   
  
It’s an inventory of an artillery store. Circled in thick ink are the numbers detailing a generous supply of gunpowder. Flint feels a nostalgic tug of admiration. “You’re going to blow up the Fort.”   
  
“Aye,” Silver affirms, meeting Flint’s eyes steadily.  

“Where is the store?”  
  
“My man on the inside has marked out a groundplan best he can,” Silver murmurs, reaching for a clumsily drawn map. “One of Max’s spies. Repairs the artillery and manages supplies. A small team will land in Port Royal on a sloop, claiming to be merchants. They will lie in wait for our arrival, and when we are observed, the powder store in the fort’s eastern corner will be blown to kingdom come. In the ensuing chaos and firefight, they will set about freeing Madi.”   
  
“You trust this spy not to sell you out?”   
  
“He’s half-Seminole, though you couldn’t tell to look at him. He has no love for the English.”   
  
“Does he have love for himself? I’d imagine having your livelihood turn to rubble could be undesirable.”   
  
“If anything, it increases his job security. Even more work will be called for to repair and restock Fort Charles.”   
  
“Which I suspect you impressed upon him.”   
  
“I did.”   
  
Flint is convinced. He goes back to examining the plans. “The smaller fort at Kingston may fire upon you, even if Mosquito Point will be unable to without risk of annihilating Port Royal proper.”   
  
“We will take fire. From a fair distance, and aiming in the near pitch darkness of a quarter moo--” Silver is interrupted by a loud thump on the door. He scowls, rising up and leaning on his cane again. “Yes?”   
  
It’s Israel Hands, pressing the door in and pausing a second to glower at Flint. Flint flicks a glances up and returns to evaluating gun ranges.   
  
“I have to speak with you.”   
  
“Yes?” Silver prompts impatiently.   
  
“Without him.”   
  
“Whatever quarrel you have had in the past, you will forget about it. _Now_.”   
  
“Like you have _forgotten_ how he betrayed you?” Hands asks, growling with rage. “No, I know you have not. And yet here is the one man who could undo all of our work thus far--”   
  
“I sense only one cause of disunity in this room,” Flint says, without looking up from the map.  
  
Hands spits on the floor by his feet. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”   
  
“You could try, if you’d care to be soundly beaten once more.”   
  
“Both of you. Stop it,” Silver snaps, voice deepening out into the same tone he uses to give orders. Flint sees right through it, but he waits patiently to see the effect it has upon Hands.  

After Silver is satisfied with the silence he still commands, he continues: “Did you have anything of substance to bring to me?”  
  
“Naughton says we have the wind. He gives us five days to Nassau.”   
  
“Five full days?” Flint asks skeptically. “Is Mr. Naughton experienced on this route?”   
  
Hands just scowls in response. Silver rubs his eyes, though Flint thinks he spots a slight grin being hidden.   
  
“Thank you,” Silver murmurs, kindly. This strange fraternity with a violent maniac bothers Flint. He focuses on the same map until he hears the door close, and then turns to Silver at once.   
  
“If you don’t have him under control, tell me.”   
  
“I have him under control.”   
  
Flint emits a disbelieving grunt. “Does he know about Thomas?”   
  
“No,” Silver answers at once.   
  
“The spy you sent ahead to investigate--”   
  
“A man I trust. He believed Thomas Hamilton’s importance to me was wrapped up in his claim of land on New Providence Island. I would not have compromised you in such a way. If word had gotten out--” Silver grimaces. “I wouldn’t let it.”   
  
“He knows there was something of importance to me in that town.”   
  
Silver frowns. “Perhaps he suspects. He knows that I would stand for no move against you.”   
  
Flint neatly stacks the maps, lips tugging tight with dissatisfaction. It reminds him to rebuild walls about his mind. Fortitude and capacity to do what need be done. Silver is above nothing when it comes to Madi’s safety. If that crosses purpose with Thomas’, then they will be perfectly opposed once more. “I’m going to go and speak to your navigator.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
“Your plan needs work,” Flint adds. He paces out.


	4. Chapter 4

Flint spends the next four days locked in an unabating debate. But despite the constant proximity (John set a hammock in the great cabin rather than have Flint sleeping down with the crew) the emotional fervour is gone.   
  
James never allows himself to lean too heavily on the fragile wall between his mind and that of Long John Silver’s. He distances himself from John’s misery, and from his emotional investment. He focuses on naval strategy, reducing the argument to an intellectual exercise. The plans are constructed from calculation alone, with no risk that emotional implications creep up on Flint. Nothing to tie them together once this is finished.   
  
Co-conspirators, but not partners. Not again.

 

 

Nassau has a familiar scent: sugar cane and filth. Flint assumed the aroma was commonplace in the Carribean, but now that he returns to the still turquoise waters he’s overwhelmed with olfactory recollections. Not just Nassau town; he’s brought back to the interior, the long rides out on horseback, the way the farms on either side struck him as unsustainable creations on their illegitimate soil. He recalls Miranda and her forlorn, rural existence. That, more than bringing her to Charles Town, killed her. He ensured that she was trapped in that bleak purgatory when he tethered himself to Nassau. He’s on deck, eyes closed tight, when John grabs his arm roughly and steers him back towards the main quarters.  
  
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”  
  
Flint raises an eyebrow, glad he had not allowed himself too deep into recollections of Miranda. That sounds precisely like her turn of phrase. “How have I misstepped?” he asks, keeping his tone level.  
  
John’s lips twitch with unbridled rage. Then, his response is perfectly cool. “Anyone onboard those anchored vessels with a glass will be able to see aboard the ship. See you. Flint, back from the-- the--”  
  
“The dead? So, you told them all you killed me.”  
  
“I told no such thing. I didn’t need to. Assumptions were made. I don’t intend to unmake them so you can _take the air._ ”  
  
“I’m sure you have spent plenty of time manufacturing a self-aggrandizing version of events that has you bring Captain Flint back in to Nassau Town.”  
  
“You’re not a captain. And you’re not going into Nassau Town. You’re going to wait here, on The Orion.”  
  
Flint scoffs at the suggestion. “ _My_ plans require _my_ oversight. I intend to see this endeavour through.”  
  
“And you will. But I don’t need you in Nassau. You’re just going to go get yourself arrested or-- or strung up by a mob.”  
  
“Why would a mob decide to string me up?”  
  
“You were hardly popular to begin with. And you stole the cache from--”  
  
“ _I_ stole the cache?” Flint asks disbelievingly.  
  
“Debatably. In any case the world thinks you stole the cache and died without revealing its location. Which is exactly how we want it to be. If that much wealth was attainable, you think someone wouldn’t go looking for it, for you? Hell, the third, and most likely option, if you show your face in Nassau? Some unsavoury collection of treasure seekers kidnap and torture you into handing over the location of the cache. And I’m not terribly keen on that happening either. No. You’re staying on The Orion, and if you take further issue with that, I’ll have my men throw you back in the hold until we’re ready to set sail again.”  
  
Flint glowers at the threat. He can, unfortunately, see the sense in Silver’s words. “The second crew cannot simply be mercenaries. You need cohesion--”  
  
“I’ve listened to you the countless times you’ve already told me that,” Silver says, but softly, seeming amazed that Flint backed down. 

Flint paces back to the table littered with the chaos of strategy. He leans over and speaks his next words down. “We’ve been gone from Nassau enough time that you yourself may now be a wanted co-conspirator. I’d send a man you trust to shore to establish the situation before you land.”  
  
“I will. ...you know, I think we made for more efficient partners before we started worrying so much about each other’s well-being,” Silver says lightly.  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Flint asks more harshly than he intends.  
  
Silver startles, tongue darting over his lips. “We were both very self-serving. It was easy to predict what actions would be undertaken at crucial moments,” he explains, brows pinched together. “Does that bother you? That I’ve admitted I don’t wish to see you tortured to death?”  
  
“You would see me tortured to death if it was necessary to your ends, and I don’t care for attempt to ply me with suggestions otherwise.”  
  
“I wouldn’t,” John says, leaning heavy on his cane as he approaches.  
  
“Yes, you would. And I’d do the same if--” Flint starts to say, cuts himself off with a dismissive wave.  
  
“If Thomas was on the line, you’d see me tortured to death,” John spells out. His voice has the same hollow ring as when he first informed Flint that Madi had been arrested.  
  
“Yes,” James answers. He tries to make it sound deathly earnest. Tries to believe it.  
  
Silver is too close, studying his affect. “I don’t believe you. You know I wouldn’t do that to you. You must know that I-- that I consider you a friend.”  
  
“I’ve told you to stay out of my head before, and I don’t care to repeat myself.”  
  
John shakes his head disbelievingly, still in dangerous proximity. “You allowed me into your mind, you welcomed me--” John jolts himself back to a different, harder persona when there’s a knock on the door. He’s leaning on his crutch far less, stepping off to the doorway. “Yes?” he asks, tugging it inward and glowering at the young crewmen whose name Flint has been told, and promptly forgotten. Flint is shocked to feel his own heartbeat, twitching away inside his ribcage. His nerves should be set steel after the things he’s done.  
  
“There’s a longboat rowing to meet us.”  
  
“English?”  
  
“No, Captain. Pirate. Some of the crew of The Revival.”  
  
“ _The Revival_ ?”  
  
“Rackham’s recently acquired vessel,” John answers, rubbing his eyes. “Well, I suppose we should let them aboard.”  
  
"Yes, Captain.”  
  
John closes the door, sagging. 

“Did anyone know you were bound for Savannah?”  
  
“No. Of course not,” Silver says, checking his pistol, and hurrying over to a trunk to pick up his belt and sword. “You stay in there, and be quiet,” he says, gesturing to the sleeping quarters.  
  
“You’re scared of Jack Rackham?”  
  
“Rackham, no. Bonny, of course. I’m not stupid. Here,” he says, extending another pistol.  
  
Flint tucks it into his belt but makes no move to leave. “Whatever they have to say, I should hear it. They have no quarrel with me.”  
  
“You will hear it. Through the wall. And you have quarrel with everyone, James.”  
  
Silver calling him by his given name feels wrong, but there’s no time to correct him. Reluctantly Flint steps away. He shuts the door behind him, resting on a heavy wooden chair in the room’s corner and checking that the pistol he’s been handed is indeed loaded. He hears John moving about, shuffling papers presumably to conceal their planning. Then, the crutch and prosthetic and leather heeled boot hastily making their way out of the cabin.  
  
In the stretching quiet, Flint strains for any clue of the conversation occuring on deck. He hears only the familiar sounds of the creaking ship, the slap of waves, and beyond that a distant, indiscernible babble of voices. He stares at the painting Silver has chosen to hang in his barely used sleeping quarters. Oils, but not particularly fine brushwork or a deep understanding of colour theory. Straw bales dotting a sweeping field, and distantly snow-capped mountains. There is longing in the artwork. It looks as if it were painted from a childhood memory, or imagination. Perhaps it was up when the ship was claimed from Hornigold.   
  
Flint’s mind wanders to Silver’s onslaught of sentimentality before they were interrupted. John seemed to be voluntarily exposing his own weaknesses in a way Flint cannot recall ever seeing before. Not to make a point or to further some grand orchestration. No, John sought reciprocation, approval. He has no time to dwell further. The cabin door opens and he hears John’s urgent tone. Not afraid or bargaining. No, that is the sound of a man rapidly refitting his own schemes around new information.  
  
“Where were you?”  
  
“The fuck does it matter where we were? Where were you when Madi got dragged off by ‘em?” Anne Bonny. Flint rises from his chair at once, stepping closer to the closed door separating their rooms. She could overpower and kill Silver before her wiser partner could prevail upon her.  
  
“Darling,” comes the entreating tone of Rackham. He replies to Silver evenly. “We were taking a prize. We had a narrow avenue to take a very valuable shipment, and we believed Max’s troubles with the law were over.”  
  
“And Featherstone?”  
  
“We’ve had words with him already. Suffice it to say that his failure to anticipate this maneuver will be paid for.” 

“So, they waited till they saw your ship depart, and loaded her on to their fastest sloop for Port Royal,” Silver murmurs. “That’s certainly more foresight than I’ve come to expect from Nassau’s authorities.”  
  
“Weren’t no navy men or anything like that. Some privateer goes by the name Adams,” Bonny spits viciously.  
  
Rackham’s voice has an ominous quality. “He overheard the Navy’s trouble capturing Max and decided to seek reward himself. Now, you and I both know that as you intend to free Madi, we seek to free Max. We’re making ready our vessel to depart now. But our goals are aligned here. I propose a dual assault. Together our ships can put the fear of God into those bastards at Port Royal.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter how terrifying we are. Once they figure out it’s their prisoners we’re after, they will have far more bargaining power than us.”  
  
“Can’t bargain if they’re dead,” Bonny contributes.  
  
“No. But we can hardly blow to smithereens all of Port Royal, and guarantee that we will spare Madi and Max from the carnage.”  
  
“So you suggest--” Rackham starts to say.  
  
Flint’s impatience has overwhelmed the niggling voice of Thomas telling him to be mindful of his own safety. He presses the door inwards, sees Silver grimace and lay a hand on his pistol. Bonny has her dagger unsheathed in the same instant. He clears his throat before he speaks.  
  
“Port Royal has endured wars with entire nations. Two pirate vessels will not be able to sack this heavily fortified colony in an open assault. Her forts are formidable enough to likely outgun us without engaging in hostage negotiation.”  
  
Rackham is dumbstruck by Flint’s presence. He and Bonny hardly seem to have changed, which Flint is surprised to feel relief at. Jack hides the shock as soon as he is able. “You’re suggesting something more covert?”  
  
“I am. Have you ever been duck hunting?” Flint asks, walking closer. He pulls the maps back into position, watching the way Silver’s lips twitch with unvoiced concern.  
  
“Duck… hunting?” Jack is still moderately slack-jawed, squinting at the papers as they are pulled forth. He picks up Flint’s sketched out routes and holds it up to the light.  
  
“No? Have you ever seen hunters set wooden ducks to float on the water, to create a false sense of security for the waterfowl?”  
  
“Course we ain’t,” Anne cuts in, frustrated immediately by allegory. Now he’s closer to her, he can see shadows under her eyes. Weren’t Bonny and Nassau’s madame lovers? That would explain the desperation.  
  
Flint shows teeth in a violent pantomime smile. “I’d like to show you how it’s done.”


	5. Chapter 5

The sun sets delicately, caught between pillars of rising clouds. A thunderstorm, shredding the horizon into indistinguishable purples. Flint considers it as an opponent before his eyes return to shore, impatient for the return of the longboat. He hears footsteps approach, but doesn’t turn. If they have any sense, they’ll allow him a wide berth.  
  
“Not supposed to be out on deck, Silver says.”  
  
His teeth grind but he doesn’t respond to Hands.  
  
“Disobeying him already.”  
  
“I don’t disobey. I disagree,” Flint says dismissively. “The two closest ships are beyond clear sight in this light.”  
  
“Says I’m to throw you in the hold if you try to leave the great cabin.”  
  
Flint turns at that, giving an imperious sniff. “You’ll want some back-up, then. Three or four men to even the odds between us.”  
  
“Doesn’t need you to fight. You’re retired now. Could lose a few pieces on the way down to--” Hands begins to threaten, before his eyes dart to the waterline. Flint resumes his surveying, spotting the familiar longboat. His hand rests on his pistol, anticipating a show of force to impress John Silver. He is not accosted as the boat pulls close. Silver is third man up, concealing a grimace of pain as he leans on the ship’s railing. Flint approaches him before anyone else can.  
  
“Did the merchant vessel depart smoothly?”  
  
“What did I fucking tell you?” Silver snaps at Hands. He doesn’t wait for a reply, pulling his cane off his back and taking off for the great cabin. Flint follows, hiding a smile.  
  
“Did the--”  
  
“I heard you the first time,” Silver interrupts. He’s uncorked the bottle of rum, drinking deeply and leaning on the heavy walnut desk.  
  
Flint doesn’t reply, but he does close the door. He stands arms folded, frowning at the amount Silver is drinking. 

“This is getting unpredictable,” Silver finally spits out, wiping his lips on his sleeve.  
  
“A predictable plan is a poor one.”  
  
“It’s the unpredictable outcome that gravely concerns me. There are too many working parts to control here. If just one cog fails, Madi swings.”  
  
“So it is to lead soldiers into battle, Silver,” Flint says, gravely.  
  
“Why were you out on deck?” Silver demands, setting down the bottle hard.  
  
“It’s dusk.”  
  
“It’s sunset. And your hair looks even more coppery under the sunset.”  
  
“If anyone is trying to write poetry about me, I’ll be in trouble.”  
  
Silver looks at him with a lack of recognition. James suddenly worries about how much domesticity has changed him. That’s exactly the sort of jest that would encourage Thomas’ beautiful smile.  
  
Silver seems to decide to ignore it as temporary hysteria. “You don’t exactly blend in, do you?” he growls, downing his second drink. He sets down the bag on his back, and rummages through until he finds a glass jar, extending it to Flint.  
  
“What is that?”  
  
“Tincture of walnut shell. One of the older women in Max’s employ uses it to colour her hair black.”  
  
“And what do you expect me to do with it?”  
  
Silver throws his hands up in exasperation. “Soon this ship will be carrying several of Rackham’s crew, all of whom are familiar with the story of Flint and his buried cache. Now, he and I have seen to it that none selected to come aboard have spent long enough in Nassau to know your face, but--”  
  
“But you want me to dye my hair like a whore so you can stop your fretting,” Flint says, discarding the bottle on to Silver’s desk.  
  
“It’s just dye, James.”  
  
“Don’t call me that.”  
  
“Beg pardon? Don’t call you by your fucking name? What would you prefer, ‘Captain’? You can try to arrange a mutiny, but I’m not entirely certain you have the votes.”  
  
“You’ve been drinking,” Flint accuses.  
  
John gestures to the rum bottle before him incredulously.  
  
“Before that. You were drinking on shore. Did the men see?”  
  
“So what if they saw me finish a pour of rum?”  
  
“You’re about to lead them into a fucking battle,” Flint growls, grabbing John’s coat and hoisting him up. “Pull yourself together.”  
  
Silver’s eyes are bloodshot, unsteady. There’s a little drool on his lips, or perhaps splashed rum. It flecks off as he rushes out retaliation. “I didn’t want them involved. I don’t. I don’t trust Rackham or his crew, and I don’t believe that we share the same goal. They want Max, I want Madi.”  
  
“They agreed to work with us. He’s aboard that merchant vessel following _our_ plan.”  
  
“‘Til they decide there’s an easier way in freeing Max. Possibly involving a large fortune in gems.” John has his feet underneath him now, steady. He makes no move to push Flint off.  
  
“While they’re involved, you’re in danger, and Madi is in danger.” 

Flint’s brows furrow but he releases his grip. “Rackham’s not reckless enough to betray the two of us. Besides, I think he actually likes you.”  
  
Silver examines the strewn tabletop for a long while. The boat has started to sway now with the oncoming wind. Not a good night to spend aboard the anchored vessel, though Flint doubts Silver is allowing him shore leave. “I feel as if I’m chasing down another tempest and I’m holding the ship together with my bare hands,” John says under his breath.  
  
Flint softens. He forgets how young this man is, sometimes. “It’s not just your hands holding this together.”  
  
John nods slowly. “Dye your hair. Shave the beard. ...please. One less worry to drink to,” Silver murmurs.  
  
“How do I even…?” Flint starts to ask unhappily.  
  
“Comb it through. Leave it on as long as possible, she said. It will dry and flake off of its own accord,” he explains, picking up the jar and extending it over. “Thank you,” Silver adds, tenderly.  
  
Flint feels hairs rise on the back of his neck. He steps away, sitting before the small basin in Silver’s sleeping quarters, testing the blade of a folded razor before damping his face and taking to the neat beard on his chin, then more reluctantly, his moustache. He stares at himself in the tiny mirror. Hasn’t been clean shaven since he was McGraw. It will be less eerie once his appearance is further changed. He pulls his shirt over his head, and begins dabbing his fingers into the jar. “You should stop drinking,” he calls over his shoulder.  
  
“I have.”  
  
“Permanently,” he mutters. He combs his fingers through now slick black locks. Silver walks around the doorway, and Flint glances back at him.  
  
“Your eyebrows.”  
  
“I don’t want to blind myself.”  
  
“It’s walnut.”  
  
“It’s black as pitch and smells like quicklime.”  
  
Silver huffs with amusement and walks over. The fraught apprehension has departed his features, leaving only the concreted worry lines and the darkly shadowed eyes. “What does quicklime smell like?” he asks.  
  
Flint offers over the bottle, a dimpled grin forming.  
  
“Wash it off your hands or you’ll dye them too,” John says, making no move to smell it. He leans in, collecting some of the dark, coarse liquid onto the tip of his little finger. Tongue between his teeth with concentration, he traces Flint’s eyebrow. 

“I’ll be of no use to you with no vision,” James mumbles, closing his eyes defensively.  
  
“Nonsense. I’ll describe the nautical charts verbally and you’ll be able to correct my idiot navigator just fine.”  
  
Flint chuckles as John starts at his other brow. There’s a certain sway to John that has nothing to do with the ship’s motion.  
  
“Stay still,” Silver mutters.  
  
“This is ridiculous.”  
  
“You look fine.”  
  
“I look like a court jester.”  
  
“What does a court jester look like?” Silver derides in the same tone as he asked about the scent of quicklime. Then, after a moment: “Why _duck hunting_ ?”  
  
James shrugs, picking up the mirror to closely disapprove his own reflection. “Who hasn’t hunted ducks?”  
  
“Anyone, _anyone_ who lives in Nassau,” John mutters. “All this time with nobility isn’t good for you,” he mutters, washing his hands in the basin. It has him leaning over James, who looks up critically.  
  
“Thomas isn’t--”  
  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Thomas seems to be a great man.”  
  
“He is,” Flint says through his teeth.  
  
John nods. “If you wish to take the bed, I doubt I’m able to sleep tonight. Storm or no.”  
  
“We’ll have to embark tomorrow, regardless of the weather. We have a rendezvous to meet.”  
  
“I’m aware,” John says, tension reforming in his shoulders. He leans on his cane heavily.  
  
“Take that damn thing off for awhile and lie down,” Flint says, standing and picking his shirt up.  
  
“I’d prefer to keep my mind active.”  
  
“And I’d prefer to have a functional partner to lead this battle. Lie down.”  
  
John says something indistinguishable underneath his breath, and then limps over to the heavy bed. He shrugs off his armaments, his coat, and tosses them on a chair. He unbuttons the ankle of his breeches around the prosthetic. Flint abruptly makes to leave.  
  
“Madi had it commissioned for me. A man in Boston who mostly worked with wealthy soldiers,” John murmurs. 

Flint mulls over that and sits again. “But it hurts,” he deduces.  
  
“Everything hurts,” John curses. He untucks the long shirt, enough to provide some modesty, and eases his breeches off. Flint’s jaw remains tight, but whatever sense of awkwardness is erased by the sight of the prosthetic eating into the flesh above.  
  
“Dammit, Silver. How long has it been since you’ve--”  
  
“That’s how it’s supposed to look,” Silver says, of the biting leather straps. He gives a wry, unsteady smile over. “Only really starts to give me grief when I restore circulation,” he adds with a grimace as he pulls at a buckle, and then another. Soon, he can ease the contraption of leather and thin plates of steel away from his body. He tosses the disembodied leg towards the chair with a shaking hand.  
  
The entire interior of the cabin is perceptibly swaying with the storm.  
  
“You know I never cared what people thought of me. It’s not that I’m too proud to accept help. Pride is synonymous with stupidity, as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t care for setting the precedent of relying on anyone but myself.” John examines his leg as he speaks, though he’s inattentive and seems mostly glad for the excuse to avert his eyes. The alcohol seems to have caught up with him, or perhaps the delirium of agony. “I never cared what they labeled me: a coward or a traitor or a villain. It’s how I accomplished so many terrible feats. A man who sees himself in no mirror. But-- but I saw my reflection in your appraisal. I couldn’t stomach standing aside your other monsters. ...you’ve haunted me.”  
  
“I'm not dead yet.”  
  
John barks out a cold laugh. “Captain Flint is supposed to be long since deceased.”  
  
“You need a miracle to free Madi. I am supplying the resurrection.”  
  
“God, you sound like me,” Silver whispers at the dry joke. “Is this how you were, before you lost Thomas? The same as me?”  
  
“I have no idea who you are, Silver. Go to sleep.”  
  
“Could you fetch me some water?” Silver closes his eyes with a grimace. “...and a bucket?”  
  
It takes him some time on deck to find a bucket, but Flint returns with both requested items. Silver is drunkenly snoring. He drags over a table, orders the discarded affects, and sets a heavy pewter jug within reach. Then he returns to Silver’s desk, takes the rum and pours it overboard. 

 

 

James wakes from fitful, distracted sleep. His first conscious thought is relief: the raucous storm has returned to a dull wobble. Then he hears the sound that woke him, voices and footfalls on deck. He stands up, pacing away to splash his face with water. He’s shocked to see Silver is still asleep, curled up tight beneath the thin cotton sheet. He clears his throat loudly, searching unsuccessfully for a comb. Finding none, he resorts to shaking the fine dark dust from his hair by hand.  
  
“You don’t look like yourself,” John says groggily, drinking from the jug beside him.  
  
“What a relief. Get up. Rackham’s men are arriving.”  
  
Silver curses under his breath. Flint walks back to the main cabin and selects the clearest navigational chart. Perhaps Rackham will have a decent seaman on his crew that could replace the fool Mr. Naughton. He tucks a gun into his belt and begins looking through Silver’s armory chest for a sword he’s happy to use. Most are poorly made, with more effort in detailing and filigree than real blacksmithing. Of course Silver doesn’t know what to look for in a blade. He eventually finds one, barely used and accordingly sharp, that looks to be Spanish naval issue. He fastens it to his belt, and looks up as Silver emerges redressed.  
  
“Your sword is ceremonial. Might not hold up to a fight. This one will do well if you don’t wish to get too technical,” he says, offering over a shorter blade.  
  
Silver exchanges the weapon silently. “We could be related.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The hair.”  
  
Flint frowns at the comparison. “You should make a speech. Something to motivate them to this cause. We will endure fire, and having paid mercenaries who may desert their post will not work out. Something about… pirates still being feared in the West Indies.”  
  
“That’s your speech,” Silver says.  
  
“Now’s your chance to prove how alike we are. I’m going to speak with Mr. Naughton, if you’ll excuse me,” James replies thinly.

Flint leaves the great cabin, a borrowed hat low over his eyes. The rain is still coming in, but cloudy warmth rather than the great sheets that the storm dumped upon them. He’s headed for the wheel when he spots a familiar redhead inspecting the rigging.  
  
Anne Bonny was too recognizable to risk the journey to Port Royal, even disguised upon the merchant vessel. Hanging the feared She-Pirate of the West Indies would be a great victory for the Royal Navy. Neither is she one of Rackham’s selected crewmen to assist the assault.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he asks abruptly, sweeping closer and out of earshot of the rest of the disembarking crew.  
  
“Who the fuck else knows you two to keep watch?” she says, flatly. “I don’t have to justify myself to you.”  
  
“You’ll be a liability. I’ve heard of how he surrendered Teach’s ship to Rogers--”  
  
“Say that again,” Bonny spits, fingers vicelike on her sword hilt.  
  
“You want Max safe, don’t you? Don’t be so stupid.”  
  
“Stupid would be trusting you two to not fuck us at first opportunity,” she spits back. “Jack doesn’t even know I’m aboard, so he ain’t gonna be thinking twice about making the right move. You try to remove me by force, I think my crew might take issue with that. We’ve heard your plan. We can do fine without you. Silver needs me and my men.”  
  
“Your men?”  
  
“Yeah. My men,” Anne challenges, chin tilted up to show off the sneer.  
  
Flint glowers back but senses the impasse. He stalks off in search of Mr. Naughton, internally reeling for some method of sending Anne Bonny back to shore without tearing a rift between the two intermingled crews. Nothing presents itself. 

He stands up on the bridge as Silver gives the much anticipated speech. They’re already underway, and the rain has died off into a humming, humid slickness. Silver serves up his usual flowery, plagiarized mishmash, but so well-delivered that Flint doubts any listeners noticed the abysmal quality of rhetoric. “Not your best,” he tells Silver, as they walk together into the cabin.  
  
“What was my best?”  
  
“That short period of time when you actually believed the causes you endorsed.”  
  
Silver rolls his eyes and returns to the charts. “We have twenty two men, and eight complete gun crews.”  
  
“Including Anne Bonny?”  
  
“Oh, yes, and two women,” Silver says miserably. “I do believe she’s here to threaten immediate revenge should Rackham’s part in the plan go awry.”  
  
“Smarter than she seems. I think she shares your concerns about the risks of cooperating with pirates. ..wait, two women?”  
  
“Mary Read is also on board. I think those two are…” John shrugs. “I told you this would complicate things.”  
  
“Magnificent,” Flint says under his breath. “Well, they have no reason to be involved in the conflict itself. And should Rackham fail, we’ll be dead with or without Anne Bonny’s sword in our throat.”  
  
“Is that your idea of reassuring me?” John asks bitterly.  
  
“Here’s some reassurance: the storm is heading due south, and the cloud cover looks to hold. We may have even more cover of dark than we planned for.”  
  
“It’s the tropics. No guarantee that it lasts the four day journey,” John returns, determined to be grouchy. He pulls out the already heavily scrutinized nautical charts as if he’ll see a more optimized attack hidden in the inked lines.  
  
Flint shakes his head incredulously. “Shall I quote your own words back to you?”  
  
John shrugs without looking up.  
  
“We’re better off than we were, yet you’re unhappy because it didn’t happen your way.”  
  
He still doesn’t acknowledge Flint directly, continuing his useless examination of the routes. “What must I do for some fucking peace and quiet?” he mutters spitefully.  
  
One dyed eyebrow tugs upwards. Flint nods curtly and makes his way back to his navigational supervision. The clouds are bulging obscenely in their low-lying ceiling.


	6. Chapter 6

It begins precisely as Silver narrated.   
  
The Orion sights the twinkling yellow of Port Royal and meets the east coast before following closely the spit of land branching out to the township. The flag was once stolen from a merchant vessel, an English Red Ensign, enough to discourage immediate fire.   
  
Whether it can be seen is another question entirely.   
  
The night is dark. Moon and stars are behind the omnipresent cloud cover, the ship having roughly followed the course of the indefatigable storm system. Flint is on deck, peering through a glass. They’re not far off Little Plumb point, as best he can tell, though the formation is less clear than it appeared on the maps. Possibly moved in the quake, and not corrected. The gun crews are all in anticipation. The serenity of the night is amplified by the promise of impending pandemonium. He hears John’s approach, as he always does.  
  
“You’ll have to tell me sometime how you talked your way off the plantation,” Silver says gently.

They haven’t spoken a great deal. Flint has spent a lot of time examining the guns, and educating Mr. Naughton on non-Euclidean navigation and geometry largely out of frustration. It was also an excuse to avoid Silver.  
  
“Not much to tell,” James says without turning.  
  
“Once this is over, I would very much like it if we could--” and whatever more he’d been about to say is lost.   
  
Port Royal’s speckling of lantern light is eclipsed by fire; a bright orange speckled plume rising from the fort’s walls. A moment later there’s the sound. Like distant cannon fire made a thousand times deeper, a rumbling of the earth itself. Through the glass Flint sees chunks of stonework cast about like scattering ash from a cigar. The righthand portion of Fort Charles is devastated, bricks peeling off into the ocean, a hellish fire burning in the yawning interior. He hears a few celebratory whoops from the deck.  
  
“Fuck,” Silver is saying under his breath. “Too soon. Fuck.”  
  
“John,” he snaps impatiently.  
  
Silver meets his eye and then every manner about him is changed. A taller, stronger man steps forward and begins issuing commands. “Stay the course. Mainsail tight,” he yells.

The ship presses onward. Flint counts the seconds underneath his breath. The men on shore trying to establish whether the gun store igniting was accident or sabotage. They’ll be milling about in heightened awareness of else amiss. They pass Little Plumb Point, onwards into the stretch of water that should not be deep enough to sail through. If Silver’s predictions hold, there will be no jolt of the ship running aground. It seemed clearer on paper. They’re so near the coastline that Flint can scarcely believe that such a deep ship will clear it. But there’s no scraping stop, and Port Royal looms before them in disarray. The ship tucks into the curve of coastline, hugging the ruined section of fort as a makeshift shield from the remainder of the guns.  
  
“Raise the black and harn the port sheets. All gun crews at the ready.”  
  
Flint takes hold of the rigging as the ship spins. He puts the glass aside for a moment, casting overhead. Rackham’s insignia flaps in the wind. It’s no technical maneuver, but he finds himself on edge as Silver continues to supply orders. Glass raised again, he can see the fire working deeper into the forts wooden internal structure.  
  
“Fire.”  
  
And all around him is the familiar symphony of powder and iron. 

The damage is immediate. The fort is further dilapidated, surrendering more weight and structure. Magnified close, he sees the first puff of retaliatory canon fire. He yells a warning, and a few moments later there’s the whizz of a missed cannonball passing to their aft.  
  
“Concentrate on the left embankment. They’ll have the clearest shot on us,” he yells over his shoulder to Silver.  
  
Silver relays the orders, in his clear voice. The next crescendo of the guns has the previously looming tower full of holes and spitting more red bricks into the waves below. John would have made a great commander in their war, Flint thinks before he can restrain himself. There’s smoke now hanging low across the water, filling the breach between the ship and the rising walls of Port Royal.   
  
Then, Fort Charles’ reprisal begins in full.   
  
The first cannonball splinters a great section of the foredeck. Cries to take cover echo between gun crews, as the barrage continues. Flint hears the deafening keeling of damage being done below deck. A man howling in agony. The mainmast takes a battering, and then there’s an explosion of wood to his immediate left. He springs forward and tackles Silver down before the less experienced man can get caught by shrapnel. John is winded, eyes wide and showing whites. The normally pale blue only reflects the fiery plume now rising before them. Flint pushes off back onto his feet, tugging Silver upright as he begins issues commands for the gun crews to target the higher parapet where gun smoke lingers.

Silver leans heavily on the ship’s railing, eyes averted from the fort itself. He doesn’t attempt to wrestle back control of the ship. He’s completely absorbed watching the tallest building within sight: Port Royal’s courthouse, and jail. It was rebuilt after the earthquake, and imposes over the small brick cottages surrounding. “They haven’t alighted the signal,” he says hollowly, barely audible over the continuing fire.   
  
A shot hits the bridge, though the debris is mostly flung further over their port side and into the ocean.  
  
Flint frowns. “Give them time,” he calls, resuming orders.  
  
Silver remains transfixed. The two men who assisted with the detonation of Fort Charles were to make their way to the jail at once. When Madi was successfully freed, a red tinted lantern was to be illuminated on the ocean side of the courthouse gate. Then, the longboat will be launched to collect them from shore. There’s several lights in that area of town, some being snuffed presumably to discourage canonfire their way.   
  
None shine red.   
  
Flint extends his glass and shoves Silver back towards the cover of a staircase. He makes his way down onto the deck, teeth set against each other. He inspects the damage, yelling orders to the crewmembers not manning guns to begin tending to the wounded, and lowering the three longboats to the far side of the ship. Despite the continuing offensive, The Orion takes further damage. Men from the gun crews stream onto deck, faces and hands streaming gore, and all he can do is send more men down to man their abandoned posts. 

“James,” he hears John calling, urgently. His first name, again. The pain in his young partner's voice is too overwhelming to consider chiding him. John continues before he has even ascended the staircase: “It’s been too long. They were killed or caught. We have to land.”  
  
James frowns. The explosion was far larger than the plans had anticipated, which leads him to suspect John’s men may have been killed in the blast or the ensuing fire. He doesn't voice the unhappy assumption. “We no longer have the element of surprise. There may be as many as a hundred armed soldiers in that fort ready to stream out the moment we make to land. We must adhere to the plan.”  
  
“There’s no goddamn plan if we don’t get Madi out,” John retorts heatedly.  
  
“Quiet,” Flint snaps. Not quickly enough. There’s footsteps. Anne is terrifying in the red glow. She and Silver match in their frantic suspense. Both know their lovers lie beyond reach.  
  
“What’s gone wrong? Where the fuck are your men--”  
  
“They haven’t signalled us. We must land.”  
  
Flint speaks emphatically. “No. We must be smart about this. Which of your men are from Port Royal? John?”  
  
He has no immediate answer, still faced agitatedly towards shore. “I don’t know these men well except for a handful, and they’ve all long inhabited Nassau. Perhaps… Barbero...”  
  
Flint grimaces and turns to Bonny. “Your men--”  
  
“None. You asked for all the new crewmen who ain’t got an idea who you are. Most are sailors from the colonies up north,” she growls. Her eyes dart towards shore. “I went to Port Royal looking for spies. I know the layout.”  
  
“I’ve been locked up there,” comes a voice from behind Bonny. Mary Read has an equally unfriendly expression on her face, but she’s pointing to the rising arch of the courthouse. Her meaning is clear. Her dark hair is tied back, and there’s dual swords at her belt.   
  
Flint’s lips purse in thought. He’s heard she’s good in a fight, though he would prefer someone of more imposing stature. A Billy Bones, perhaps. But one who isn’t a cowardly traitor. If Mary has been aboard a pirate vessel thus far and survived to recommend herself, he should count that statistic in her favour.  
  
“We three go. Allow us another fifteen minutes, and if we don’t return you can land and storm the jail. ...you two both swim fine, I take it?” he says, shedding his coat.  
  
Silver is reluctant at once. “What? No. You’re not going. I promised Thomas.”  
  
“Who the fuck is Thomas?” Anne asks with her usual tact.  
  
“Noone,” Flint snaps, dragging John back towards the great cabin. John's cane was lost in the earlier tackle, so he's off balance enough that Flint steers him with ease. He slams the door. “I’m capable. I will succeed this and I will bring Madi back with me.”  
  
“No,” Silver repeats, attempting to match the authoritative pitch of Flint.  
  
“You want to send just those two?” Flint asks. Two young, reckless women off into Port Royal alone? Neither seems the tactical or covert sort. He knows John understands the folly, and sees his expression twitch with indecision. “No. You don’t.”  
  
“I promised him,” John whispers.  
  
“Your promises have never been very resilient before this moment, Silver.”  
  
“Fuck you,” John snarls.  
  
“Go and take control of your ship,” Flint says flatly.  
  
“No,” John refuses desperately, voice grating like metal riding over metal. His hand goes to Flint’s forearm, clinging. The grip trips up the thin shirt, bunching a fist at his shoulder, pulling closer. “We’ll send someone else, James. I’m not trading you for--”  
  
Flint doesn’t know where the rage comes from. He throws Silver off with enough force to send him crashing back onto the table. He hears it overturn, but doesn’t look back. He can’t look back. If he starts to doubt, he will never accomplish what he needs to. He strides past the Bonny and Read, shuddering down unsteady breaths as he tries to dispel Silver’s words, heading to where he saw Hands lowering the longboat.   
  
There’s a suspicious lour from Silver’s right hand man. His arms strain with the effort of maintaining tension on the ropes.  
  
Flint has no time for niceties. “His men failed. A second attempt is required. ...you need to make sure he doesn’t attack Port Royal if I fail in turn. It would be suicide.”  
  
“I don’t take orders from you.”  
  
“He’s your friend. Deny it all you want, but you want him to live,” Flint murmurs. “Naughton knows the plan. If you incapacitate Silver, Rackham will be smart enough to understand that there is no exit strategy once the Navy sends her anchored fleet after us. He will not know about Anne's involvement until he has no choice but to continue with our strategy.   
  
Then, they will have to retreat, regroup to have any chance at surviving this. And you want to survive this. You want John to survive too.”  
  
Hands scowls, horribly twisting his scars. Then his head moves, the faintest dip of acknowledgment. Flint wastes no longer, ducking at another rain of splintered wood as he hurries back to where the women were standing. They’re gone, leaving only a rope tied fast to the rails and flung over the port side. He can barely make out the two bobbing heads in the inky water heading around the ship’s rudder for shore. He kicks off his boots, checks again his blade is fastened tight, and rappels himself down the ship’s hull. 

The water is bitterly cold, depths stirred up by the storm running through. Flint stretches out into it, fingers raking at the lapping waves. He doves beneath the surface and powers himself forward. It’s a short swim to the shore, which rises sandy and abrupt to meet him. He sees Mary and Anne ahead, pressed into the stilts of a mid-construction pier. He pulls himself up, checking his blade and tugging it off his back.  
  
“Follow me,” he says in a tone that brooks no discussion.  
  
They’re both admirably stealthy. He leads them on a circumspect route around the main street, sticking close to the walls of the brick cottages and closed up stalls. A door opens ahead of them. He freezes and presses back into the darkness, colliding with Anne midstep. It’s a large, well-dressed man checking the condition of the fort. He hurries off into the township, out of sight. Flint exhales and points onwards. They hug a heavy stone wall adorned with skeletal gibbets, and thread through the eerie wooden legs of a well-established gallows. 

Silver had the plans of the jail through his contact, though they were less detailed than that of the fort regularly worked within. The courthouse itself was damaged by the earthquake, but had been a squat and useful building. The rebuild spawned an icon of rising marble clad columns and iron bars. It serves as an ever present reminder of the Empire’s reach. Port Royal’s courthouse has become a production line for the hanging of traitors to England, a symbolic altar which rebellious blood drenches day and night. There is a women’s prison, a fortified cottage just left of the courthouse, but the security is abysmal and John had heard reliably that Madi was held in the most secure basement hold of the court-attached jail.

The plans indicated that the easiest route in would be through the attorney’s rooms, which then connected by corridor to the main holdings. The door inside is through the main entrance of the courthouse. As they approach, he sees the tethered lantern unlit on the wrought iron gate. He picks a section of gate bordering on a brick column, and climbs himself up, leaning heavily on the bricks to avoid the pointed spear tops.   
  
He keeps hold long enough to avoid most of the pain of the fall. It still jarrs his knees and he rolls onto the loose gravel. He exhales with pain and hurries for the only cover in sight, a marble wall. He leans there, one moment to marshal himself impervious to his own body’s alarm.   
  
Anne is already catching up with him.   
  
Mary, too, is more elegant on the dismount, and the three stand shoulder to shoulder in the silence, listening for dogs or for shouting to indicate their presence was known. From their relative elevation James sees The Orion enduring more fire. The urgency spurs him on.

He motions to the women, and together they ascend the staircase, feet soft past the imposing marble pillars. He spots the smaller side doorway, exactly where it was described. Another step, and he notices that the door is hanging open, the lock broken by force. So, they got this far. But the door was supposed to be opened silently with a key stolen from the town’s drunkard prosecutor. Prickling hairs rise on his nape. He signals for the women to retreat.   
  
Barely two steps down and there’s pounding footfall, and the door behind is thrown open.   
  
Rounding the base of the staircase are armed men, blocking their escape. James counts eight muskets levelled their way before he ceases to count. Behind him must be more.   
  
Bonny has her blade free, cornered gaze darting across the surrounding structures looking for some avenue of exit. Flint growls at her to lower her blade, and goes back to cursing himself for relying on a compromised strategy.  
  
“Well. This must be Anne Bonny and Mary Read,” comes a cultured drawl behind them. The man has a haughty bearing and light eyes and reminds him for a moment of Peter Ashe. Then he continues with another step and Flint sees the gaunt sneer so unlike the soft deceptive features of the man he slew. “I suppose that makes you Jack Rackham,” says the man gleefully.

Suddenly Flint is overwhelmed with recognition. Commodore St. Coe. He'd heard John speak the name of their adversary without making the connection to his own past.   
  
In London he’d seen this very man in counsel with Admiral Hennessy, though it would be at least a decade past. He'd been merely a captain, but heavily favoured by his superiors. Back then McGraw had been in attempting to brush shoulders with anyone who may have aided his ascension from the class into which he was born. He’d committed the man to memory: the third son of a powerful political family, with a wealthy Anglo-Saxon spread into the New World. From the complete lack of recognition, the favour was not returned to the lowly officer he had then been. He’s not surprised that St. Coe’s influence has spread thusly into the West Indies, but he is nonetheless alarmed by his opposition. Conservative political leanings are not expressed in his reckless and intelligent war designs. He hailed some underreported, tactically crucial victory over the Spanish, though James cannot recall specifics. He draws a whistling breath between his teeth as the man advances. Better to be identified as Rackham and guaranteed the delay of a publicised trial, than to be shot in the head now as a nameless accomplice.  
  
“Drop your weapons.”  
  
Flint unbuckles the sheath, the recently borrowed sword skidding down the stone steps. Bonny follows suit. Anne still holds her weapon, though it’s pointed down. Her mouth is open in a silent howl of despair. Eventually, as if prying her own fingers apart, her grip is relinquished. Her sword slips to the ground in a ringing clatter. 

“Shackle them,” St. Coe orders, thin smirk rising.  
  
Two men grab each of the women’s arms, and then his own. Each soldier’s face is foul with hatred for the pirates that have destroyed so much of their township. Chains are clapped to their wrists roughly, and all three are shoved forward. They are midway down the staircase when there’s footfalls and a hurried, triumphant voice. “Commodore. The saboteurs failed to impede The Caduceus. Captain Adams is underway.”  
  
There’s a hurrah from the man with a gun to Anne’s chin. The commodore pauses, throwing his hand up to halt his men. He obviously decides his prisoners are to be a forced audience to the destruction of their only hope. The hulking warship rounds the smouldering wreckage of Fort Charles. The Orion’s sails are full with the wind now, attempting to backtrack the coastline.   
  
The Caduceus takes chase; she is a much larger galleon bristling with weapons of war, only a fraction smaller than The Revenge. The impunity that John had suggested was earned through a fast sloop was in reality achieved with a vessel that would have easily sunk Rackham’s reprisal.   
  
There’s a spattering of shots from The Orion’s stern chasers, but they appear to do negligible damage. The Orion’s colours are struck, but no attempt to board is made. The broken ship propels itself to safety like a limping, wounded rabbit attempting to outstrip a fox. The warship catches it and in the distant cacophony wood flies free and fire begins to burn up the mainmast. Flint sees The Orion’s waterline creeping higher on the battered hull. Taking on water. She’s sinking, and fast.  
  
“Send a team of men on to the beach to shoot the survivors. We have who we need.”  
  
Flint exhales with relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and probably only naval assault I'll ever write, so apologies if you were wincing at any terminology. I researched as best I could but... shit is complicated, yo.
> 
> Thanks to any commenters. You are my truest love.


	7. Chapter 7

They don’t stay to watch The Orion’s bitter end. The mauling continues down the coastline, then into the hazy black beyond the inferno’s illumination.   
  
The prisoners are jostled away from the courthouse’s grand entrance and through the heavily manned jail. Whispers spring up about their procession like leaks from a splintered barrel.  
  
James expected a more rigorous arrest process, but their captors have opted to to contain their threat with haste over due process. They descend a winding stone staircase, past crowded, barred cells of hungry men languishing in sticky darkness. Flint wonders if John’s men are among the sickly crowd, or if they resisted arrest and were killed. A muzzle of a gun impacts the back of his head every time he attempts to turn and establish his bearings in the flickering labyrinth.   
  
Then they reach the high security cells: they are not simply barred blocks, but walled in with impenetrable wrought iron doors.   
  
The two women are shuffled forward first. He notices, with distaste, how much more thoroughly Bonny is searched than the less handsome Mary Read. Orders are yelled through the thin window in the rusted door, the other occupants told to face the wall. He suspects it may be the allocated womens’ holding, containing Max or Madi or both. Mary and Anne are pushed inside unceremoniously. The door clangs deafeningly closed, and lock crunches back into alignment.

James is steered onward a few feet further to another such bolted door on the opposing side of the corridor. He’s shoved face first into the wall, and guards’ unforgiving hands search his wet shirt. His belt is removed. Next, the inside of his legs are patted for weaponry. Before he can be locked away too, the guards surrounding him snap to attention.  
  
“So this is Jack Rackham, terror of the West Indies,” comes a triumphant drawl. Commodore St. Coe had left the march of the prisoners to deliver orders elsewhere, but seems to have returned simply to gloat. “I admit, you caught me out. I did not think you so foolhardy to siege Port Royal. Not over a woman.”  
  
Flint says nothing, chin raised proudly now that he’s discounted the threat of recognition.  
  
“I suppose you’re proud of the damage done. This story is not what you may arrogantly assume it to be. It will reinforce the might of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, and their allies.”  
  
Flint responds only with his long perfected disdainful indifference.  
  
St. Coe endeavours, determined to draw a reaction. “Adams’ bravery will see him rewarded for allegiance to the Crown. His defeat of you will be reported far and wide.” 

Finally, Flint cannot resist. Discovery of their ruse must be only minutes away, and John is long out of the reach of any of the forts’ guns in this impenetrable darkness. “Adams? Surely not. I believe Captain Adams is deceased in his bed, full of inoperable stab wounds. You must be thinking of another captain.”  
  
The commodore scoffs in response. He gestures with a single finger, and a crunching gun butt impacts Flint’s left ear from behind.   
  
He feels blood burst hot around his cheek, and stumbles with the enormity of the pain. The second blow hits his face, breaking his lip and turning his cheek further to the floor.  
  
“You will not speak unless prompted by a magistrate, pirate,” the commodore murmurs.  
  
Flint has his bare feet underneath him, blinking at the barren stone floor. He straightens back up from the capitulation, rolls tension from his neck, hearing his spine protest the force with which he was struck. His rising stare singles St. Coe apart from any of his men and his surroundings, pins him into place. His lips split apart. He becomes demonic with his toothy, ruby wet grin.  
  
The high ranking naval figurehead before him takes an inadvertent step back. “Officer Banfield, you are to find the rooms rented by the Privateer Adams,” he orders, turning rapidly away from Flint. “McManus, I want you to head to the fort--” he stops at the echo of an approaching sprinter.  
  
“Commodore. The lights on The Caduceus have been snuffed. We’ve lost track of her. The pirates may have boarded,” relays an out of breath young man in naval dress.  
  
Flint’s smile creeps wider. The young man looks over, and startles as if sighting the devil himself. Soon, they will establish that there are no survivors on the beach, indeed, no bodies at all. The filled longboats were easily missed in the darkness, slicing through the low lying gun smoke amid the chaos of The Caduceus' all out assault.  
  
“Get him out of my sight,” the Commodore snaps, but he’s pacing away fast enough that such an order is wholly unnecessary. 

The occupants of the cell are ordered against the wall, and Flint is thrown to the cell’s floor. He falls awkwardly, still shackled. The door locks, but he doesn’t lie defeated by captivity for long. He pulls his knees underneath him, scraping up the stone wall for support as he evaluates the potential threat of cellmates. The two men are both of very dark complexion. He recognises one at once, even with the addition of thick stubble.  
  
“Julius,” he greets, reserved.  
  
“...Captain Flint,” he says, with only a moment's hesitation. His eyes become narrowed slits. “I heard you were dead.”  
  
“I’ve been doing my best to that end,” he murmurs, wishing he had a hand free to wipe some of the blood off his chin. He spits another mouthful, lip sending shooting pain. “Is Madi here?” Julius nods. “Eme and Max also?”  
  
“Yes."  
  
At least Silver's informant has proved trustworthy. James hopes he is not discovered in the investigation that will doubtless unfold. “If you wish for someone to mount a rescue for you, I would suggest being a beautiful young woman,” Flint says with reserved bitterness, leaning heavily on the wall. “What’s your name?”  
  
The man looks first to Julius, who nods permissively.  
  
“Roje. Roje Farrow.”  
  
“Flint,” he greets in return, and then grits his teeth. “...they think I’m Jack Rackham. I may, at some point decide to correct them, but it is for now my best chance of stretching out my trial. The publicity of it will ensure that they don’t simply hang me tomorrow morning and be done with it.”  
  
“I heard others arrive with you,” Julius says.  
  
“Anne Bonny and Mary Read. You know them?”  
  
“By reputation.”  
  
Flint nods. He casts his eyes speculatively over the cell. There’s not even a window, which explains the foul smell. Unsurprising, considering that they descended at least a full storey from the jail proper. The ground is hard stone, though there’s a matt of dry cane leaves in one corner. In the other rests a putrid, covered stone pot. Still, it’s a large enough space considering the overcrowding he saw in the less secure cells. “How many guards on this corridor?”  
  
“Two at each end. Shifts swap around lunchtime. Often they sleep on the night shift, which is when we can talk.” 

Flint frowns. He wishes, dearly, to communicate with Madi, but he sees that he’s just as likely to encourage abuse directed at her than himself. He turns around to regard Julius, trying to hold himself with as much dignity as possible in his shackled state.  
  
“So. Here you are locked in a cell, for a war you told me you were not interested in fighting.”  
  
Julius glares back at him. “You’ve been dead a long time, old man.”  
  
“You’ve the opportunity to explain yourself. What else did you have planned for your night?”  
  
Julius scoffs. He doesn’t seem inclined to speak on it, at first, but eventually breaks the silence with an angry muttering. “The deal was made by white men to benefit white men.”  
  
“They reneged on the protection of Maroon Island?”  
  
Julius shrugs. He speaks low, with unmeasurable bitterness. “The isolation meant we were impoverished, without trade and supplies. A hurricane wiped out a few months of crops, so we attempted to sell other supplies for corn and wheat. Those that tried to trade were robbed, threatened with slavery in the New World should they take issue with the theft. Those that tried to take jobs that we had been guaranteed we would be equals in were laughed out of Nassau. ….an Englishman raped a young black woman, took her on board his ship and vanished her, and they would not try him for it.”  
  
Flint’s eyes grow shadowed and weary. “I see.”  
  
“When Nanny’s people landed on our beaches, seeking our help, I let them take refuge, restock, hold their meetings.”  
  
“So you were simply facilitating,” Flint says.  
  
“I was, for a time. Eme asked for my help running weaponry. I’m a good fighter, so are my men. I knew I could protect her if we accompanied her to Jamaica. ...the English intercepted our boat. There were many guns on board, shot, powder, swords. They killed all aboard but Eme, Roje and I. I believe the fear drove them to put out the warrants for Madi and Max,” he adds, regretfully.  
  
Flint lets out a soft grunt of understanding. A beautiful woman. That will facilitate the slide into radicalism as fully as any injustice. “Is Maroon Island safe?” he asks, uncomfortably aware of the vicious consequences that all the freed men and women there could face for the actions of a few.  
  
“I believe so. I distanced myself from my people, when they interrogated me. Told them we were en route from Nassau.”  
  
“I’m ...sorry,” James says reluctantly. His ear has stopped bleeding, he thinks. He’s cold and tired to his deepest core. He wants Thomas’ arms around him, wants to be sat by the hearth in their cottage, listening to his lover’s heartbeat. “You were right to fear war.”  
  
“You were right to know that it is necessary,” Julius murmurs, done with the conversation. 

 

 

Flint has fallen asleep and starts when Julius clears his throat.  
  
“The closest guard is snoring,” he says softly. “Eme tells me that Madi wishes to see you.”  
  
Flint pushes himself upright, blinking with exhaustion.  
  
‘See you’ implied to Flint a greater vision than what is possible. With his face pressed to the tiny window, he can make out her left eye, her nose, her lips.  
  
“Flint,” she says, a weary flicker of a smile. The situation is too bleak for any more levity. “You’re hurt.”  
  
He shakes his head to dismiss the concerns. “Madi,” he murmurs, deriving a certain pleasure simply speaking her name. “Apologies about the state of your rescue.”  
  
She looks away from the tiny window. “Max says she believes they’ll return.”  
  
“John isn’t going to let you hang.”  
  
There’s a twitch of conflicting emotions at his mention. Still drowning in betrayal, and yet unable to sever the affection she has for him. He wonders if he looked the same when he tried to convince Silver that the liberation of hearts and minds and of an entire people was possible. That their war was still worth waging.  
  
“I didn’t know. That you weren’t dead.”  
  
James considers that. The enormous mistrust Madi must hold. He thinks he harbours the very same feeling. His own inadequacy presents itself at once. He deserted their war too, in a way. “I couldn’t be prouder of what you tried to do. And I know I should have been more active in--”  
  
“You gave so much. I couldn’t expect more after what you’d been through.”  
  
Flint rests his cheek against the cold iron of the door. “Tell Mary and Anne that they’ll try to hang us as soon as possible to dissuade attempts to free us. It will be a spectacle.”  
  
“Max has told them to claim pregnancy.”  
  
Flint blinks, impressed. “Will that work? There aren’t ways of telling?”  
  
Madi has no answer. 

Flint mulls it over. It’s almost a viable plan. “Tell Anne to charm the doctor, if he expresses doubt. She should cry, if she can muster such on demand. They must tell the courts I had them kidnapped, forced them to participate in these raids. They must play up their youth, their sex, their vulnerability in the face of a violent, murderous pirate. ...they were cooperating for the safety of their unborn children.”  
  
“You forced them…?”  
  
“Rackham. They think I’m Jack Rackham. He's aboard the stolen warship. He'll be back for Anne.”  
  
They stare into each other’s half-concealed faces through the tiny windows. The contact and the connection is comforting beyond any words.  
  
“And where is he?” she asks eventually.  
  
“John is aboard a stolen--”  
  
“Not him. Where is _he_ ?”  
  
Flint can’t begin to think about Thomas. “Seeking a lawyer for you,” he answers without meeting her eye.  
  
“Why did you do this?” she asks.  
  
James’ expression falters, devolves into guilt. Why _did_ he do it? Certainly, the arrogant presumption that he was beyond failure. Putting himself into dangerous situations was not just habit, it was a historically reliable path to achieving his ends. Madi’s life hung in the balance, as he stood aboard on that deck alit with firelight. As did Silver’s. John would have lead the charge, and been gunned down by Commodore St. Coe’s men. Certainly, he’d thought of Thomas, but having someone waiting had never steered him away from peril before; he can recall countless times that he could have left Miranda alone in Nassau, more a widower than before. But there’s no equivocation.   
  
His relationship with Miranda was not what he now shares with Thomas.   
  
He considers his words on a riverbank in Savannah. Their reunion couldn’t come soon enough, James had told him. Now it may not come at all. His voice, when he finds it, has the hollowness of post hoc justification: “I know that our people won’t rest until you and Max are free.”  
  
Madi’s raised eyebrow eviscerates his excuses. “They’ll hang you.”  
  
“They’ve tried to hang me before.”  
  
She says nothing. James looks away. 

“You must draw out your own trial. I don’t have any good suggestions as to how.” Madi is quiet, momentarily. “I will ask Max.”  
  
“Why am I surrounded by people indicted by the same war they opposed me so vehemently upon?” Flint says, too loud.  
  
Madi’s eyes flash a warning and she’s gone.   
  
The snoring stops and Flint retreats back to the wall with tentative steps, leaning back against it. The conversation was all but over, and he doesn’t risk trying to catch her attention again. His lashes flicker shut, meditating on any possible leverage he may have against the Commodore. Concentration does not come easily, between the exhaustion, blood-loss, and the regret.   
  
Intrusive visions of Thomas rise, a wall of unbreaking water rippling threateningly overhead. The soft lines crow’s feet around his eyes from reading so often in poor lighting. The way he’d edit his essays out loud to draw James into debate while he was hurriedly dressing for work. The way James would return home, regularly, to find his lover at the kitchen table pretending to be reading but obviously half-asleep. Waiting to be assured of James’ safe return from his work with the Musgroves. The undeniably real sensation of Thomas’ bodyweight in bed, entangled in their pool of warmth.   
  
How long did he spend with Thomas? Not even a full two years after so much time apart. They talked so often about the rest of their lives. Not in speculative terms, but with the conviction of men who intended to survive this world together.   
  
That conviction was abandoned in Savannah the moment he boarded The Orion, he realizes.   
  
Flint feels his indelible narrative of purpose begin to fade fast. Hopelessness follows.


	8. Chapter 8

Flint is impressed by Julius and Roje’s ability to sleep soundly on the thin piles of shed cane leaves. He supposes they’ve both never enjoyed any great comfort. Roje is a former slave too, he’s fairly certain. Flint himself surrenders to a few drowsy minutes of insentience, but there’s no real rest to be had. Not while his mind is so unpleasantly occupied with thoughts of Thomas.   
  
He has but a faint approximation of the time, and when a meal arrives he takes it to be breakfast. A ubiquitously grey gruel that was possibly once oats. The water is a more pressing concern. His dehydration has set in hard, lips chapped and headache threatening. He allows the other men to drink first.   
  
Julius is expressionless as he holds it steady for Flint, who drains the rest of the pitcher. He’s not going to eat from the floor like an animal, nor ask the other men for further assistance. For now, the mild hunger is easily ignored. He’ll be strong enough to fight or run, if John foolishly remounts the offensive so soon.

 

 

It’s hours later, with little conversation passing between himself and his cellmates, when he hears guards returning. He’s standing and ready to leave, but he hears that they’ve approached the women’s cell. They call out for Mary Read, and Flint crouches to watch the procedure behind prisoner removal. Important to identify potential exploitation as early as possible.   
  
Mary is ordered to extend her hands behind her back through the small window, and her still chained wrists are fastened to a catch on the door. The other women are ordered back, and she is walked backwards with the door as it opens outwards. Flint counts two rifles aimed into the darkness of the cell, though he cannot see the other occupants. The chains is then disconnected from the catch upon door, and Mary Read is led away by the procession of naval uniforms. Flint settles down to wait. Shortly, the guards return. Anne is led away with the same procedure.   
  
He supposes he’ll be escorted away shortly. He rolls his already aching shoulders. He’d hoped they’d remove and refasten his restraints and allow him some opportunity to rearrange the stressed muscles.

 

 

He waits what he guesses to be two hours (the indeterminable waiting strikes him as the worst part of confinement) for the tramp of boots. The orders are shouted for Julius and Roje to back up, and he too is collected. There are four rifles on him as he backs up with the opening door. He plays despondent and obedient for now. He keeps his eyes dully forward, though he carefully reconnoitres the passages and guards that pass his periphery. The procession takes two turns left, through a bolted metal door, and they ascend up into a barred cage of a courtroom. There he must wait, as the accused’s seat is already occupied by Bonny and Read. He notes the cause of delay in his own trial: both women were removed from their men’s garb and refitted into the plain rough cloth of servant’s dresses.   
  
Anne looks frighteningly ladylike, until he catches sight of her scowl directed his way. He hopes she didn’t level such attitude at the judge.  
  
“...and a Doctor will assess the validity of their claims,” he catches from a court officer. The two women’s chains are unbolted and both are hauled upright, though he notices a marked reduction in the force with which they are steered.   
  
There are drying tracks of tears down Mary Read’s face, her lids bloated and eyes irritated. At least one of them put some effort into the act.  
  
Play your role, he wants to tell Anne. He cannot undermine the narrative of his cruelty, and in front of so many witnesses. As they pass, Anne jerks away from her guard, and spits full in Flint’s face.  
  
“I hope they cut your noose a foot too short, bastard,” she growls.  
  
The hatred in her voice no doubt arises from one of his previous actions as Captain Flint, but he is nonetheless impressed by the passion summoned up. At the same time, he must bear the humiliation of her saliva dribbling down his cheek, with no hand free to wipe it away. “Their noose may well be one of your pretty ribbands, as far as concerns you. You’ll not escape me. I’ll be with you in Hell, whore,” he barks back. He cuffed hard on the back of the head, as Anne is tugged away.

He is wrestled forward, shoved onto a bench and chained in place. The courtroom is equally striking in interior, though there’s none of the fine artisanship he’s used to seeing in such grand structures. The magistrate stares at him with undisguised disdain. He’s pleased to see that the Commodore sits front and center to the sizeable crowd. He allows his hair to fall in his eyes, hoping that no onlookers present have ever been aboard one of Rackham’s captured vessels. The last thing he needs now is to have aspersions cast upon his stated identity.  
  
“Not guilty,” he calls loudly before he is addressed in any way.  
  
“Silence,” growls the guard closest, a hand raised threateningly as if to strike. Flint scowls but surrenders to temporary obedience .  

The judge’s voice is both monotonous and bloodthirsty. “Jack Rackham, you sit before the court accused of innumerate misdeeds and some of the most barbaric transgressions ever enacted against the Crown. We have indisputable records of fifteen merchant ships set upon by your vicious lawlessness. Your industry of violence has seen the destruction of Fort Charles, and the loss of six and twenty lives--”   
  
Flint ceases to listen. It is not the first time he’s been tried for piracy, and the insidious moralizing and hypocritical condemnation is not improved upon repeat. He surveys the crowd between the strands of dyed hair, one by one, for any familiar faces. Many are gawking up at him like he is an exotic beast. He doesn’t know who he’s afraid of seeing. Silver? Thomas? Neither would be so foolish, he tries to reassure himself. Then he realizes there’s silence. He looks up, and the judge narrows his eyes, obviously loathe to repeat himself.  
  
“What do you plead?”  
  
James looks up patronizingly at the guard who threatened him earlier, under the guise of asking permission. The man isn’t looking his way. “Not guilty,” he intones, letting his boredom ring out.  
  
“Very well. You will be tried on all charges tomorrow. ...take him back to his cell.”

 

 

He’s been led most of the way back to the heavy barred door that separates the courtroom from the prison when he turns to the man holding him. A younger man in naval uniform, but whom appears to be a level of authority beyond either of the prison guards.   
  
Now, he straightens his spine and allows his voice to have every impression of the respected Lieutenant he was. He injects the indisputable authority he has relied upon so many times. “I must speak to Commodore St. Coe. It is of great urgency. I am the only man capable of returning the warship to you, as I know precisely where she is headed.”  
  
The man is startled, chin rising at the authoritative tone in a way than assures Flint of subconscious obedience. The officer studies Flint for another moment, rationalizing his desperate need to obey a pirate. “What information?”  
  
“I cannot convey it here and now, without some manner of nautical map. But the Commodore must be informed, and now.”  
  
Another several moments pass in deliberation, and Flint begins to believe that the learned fear of St. Coe may be too great to achieve dominion over his men so easily. Then the man snaps out a command to halt and takes off in another direction.   
  
When he returns, it’s with shackles for Flint’s ankles. An unwelcome addition to his already uncomfortable confinement, but a signal that his urgency was heeded. He’s led out of the jail’s wide doors, and marched several houses to a high stone wall and a rippling flag above the arched gateway. The Naval Ensign flutters with the warm breeze. James feels close to free, despite the shackles and the armed guards behind and ahead of him.

 

 

They enter the large sandstone building, ascending a curling, snake-like staircase before his guard knocks on a hardwood door. James clearly makes out the permissive call from within, and then with scrutiny can overhear the conversation through the closed door.  
  
"He says he information on the location of The Caduceus, Commodore. He told me he’d only relay it to you.”  
  
“You took your orders from this prisoner?”  
  
“No, Commodore.”  
  
The veiled anger in the second voice is obvious even muffled: “Bring him in, and I will speak with you later.”  
  
The door reopens, and Flint is shoved through.  
  
“What is this information, Rackham?” St. Coe asks, as he’s still regaining his footing.  
  
Flint reminds himself, again, to respond to the name. “It concerns the anchor point of my own ship, The Revival. My men will be sailing for it now.”  
  
St. Coe studies him before looking up at the guards on either side. “You, both, wait outside the door. You may sit,” St. Coe says, with an insincere affability.  
  
James steps further across the hardwood flooring, short chain between his shackled ankles dragging with his advance. The office’s interior is decadent, compared to the vast majority of naval quarters he’s spent time in. The furniture is all fine wood, and meticulously clean. There’s a large and richly detailed globe adorned with gold filigree on the desk between them. James suspects it all to be mimicry of the luxury this nobleman was born into. The frontier of civilization is no place for such unapologetic finery. But it is not unprotected. He sees a sword on St. Coe’s hip, and a holstered pistol. Not to mention the countless armed men waiting to shoot him the moment there is any unexpected hubbub from this office. It is not time for reckless violence, it is time to channel his old quartermaster’s conniving, cajoling temper. 

Flint wishes he were a more informed gambler, but instead his gambit rests upon assumptions. The ship that Rackham stole looked modern in design and construction, boasting as many as a hundred guns. Simply unaffordable for a privateer, unless he was as successful as Woodes Rogers in his golden era. Flint doubts it. He would have heard the name Adams, removed as he was from the West Indies. No, the ship is likely a captured Spanish or French vessel, and never bought outright by Captain Adams. A privateer would not be gifted a warship of the Royal Navy, but there would be a certain ambiguity if it were a recently acquired prize of war. Flint suspects that Adams has been captaining it only on the contingency that he uses it to the ends of Port Royal’s naval command, or perhaps the ends of its governor, Lawes. As such, the loss will be making someone sweat.  
  
“If you obtain for me and for my wife, Max Rackham--” There’s a flicker of distaste at the idea of his supposed marriage. Whether it’s Max’s skin tone, the gap between their ages, or simply the other women involved, Flint cannot say. He continues, after a moment to let the judgment disperse. “If you obtain a pardon for me and for my wife, I will in return direct you to the island which The Revival is harboured offshore of, and where my crew will be landing in order to distribute men between the vessels so that their returning voyage to Nassau is fortified by two ships. They will be without their captain, and undermanned. If there is a time in which the Navy may retake their vessel, and another pirate vessel to boot, it is now. If you allow the ships reach Nassau, and the crew is replenished in number and in powder and shot, The Caduceus will never again fly any colour but the black.” 

The grey eyes are unreadable even to Flint. He had weighed asking for a pardon for Max; the additional request lends credibility, considering the risky rescue attempt, but could create problems for a woman he is still only tentatively allied with. He does not want her mistreated in an attempt to force cooperation, as it would divide Madi’s loyalties, and turn Bonny and Rackham into fierce opponents. He doubts a man clinging so bitterly to English proprierty would have a woman tortured. Most of the stratagem’s risk is borne by him.  
  
The tall, uniformed man leans across the heavy wooden desk. “You can point this location out on a map?”  
  
“The location is not upon a map. But I can direct and accompany you, to guarantee my sincerity and my cooperation. Once the ships are retaken, my wife and I will seek passage north and establish ourselves as hardworking members of a society set to shelter repentant souls.”  
  
There’s a long pause as St. Coe steps around the desk. “I’d hoped you would fight, as your first landed party did. It would have befit the violent nature of your treason against the Crown, to have your end come agonizingly wounded in a skirmish. I should have enjoyed retelling the story of how I slew Jack Rackham.” He pulls his sword free of its scabbard, a fine weapon that Flint decides to be a colichemarde-- a heftier join between blade and hilt than most rapiers. The sword’s design allows the wielder to parry the improvised melee weapons that pirates often fight with. St. Coe holds the blade with the finesse of a gentleman trained in technical fencing from boyhood, and brings it to rest against Flint’s forehead.   
  
The tip digs in, an inch above his brow, squarely center.  
  
It hurts immediately, but Flint does not flinch, not even when blood begins to dribble down and off the tip of his nose. St. Coe rotates the blade a fraction. He feels his lip twitch into a hurt wince, and attempts to pass it off as a sneer.  
  
The man drops the blade away from his face, and rests it upon the muscle of his shoulder. Flint’s still chained arms shudder with the effort of not moving to avoid the blade. His every instinct is to fight back, which here would mean certain death. More blood drips off his nose, and he can feel it prickling across his right eyebrow as the wound continues to seep.  
St. Coe speaks in a quiet and conversational tone. “This is not a dealing between two equals. If you believe it is my desire to cooperate with you to serve both our ends, you are sorely mistaken. I would see a hundred ships lost rather than it being known that I assisted a pirate. Do you know how many good men I have lost to you and your ilk?”  
  
“Not as many as you will lose once a warship begins patrolling your waters,” Flint says as nonchalantly as he can while his own blood whets his lips.  
  
“That’s certainly true. I don’t believe you have the location at all, but I cannot allow the possibility to go unexplored,” St. Coe says in a low voice. He presses in enough to slice through the linen shirt and drive the razor sharp point into Flint’s skin and the muscle below The pain is undeniable, ripping through mental barriers as they are furiously constructed. He can feel his lips contorting with it. He pulls them taut and envisions an iron mask in place of his own flesh.  
  
“Is there really an island, Rackham?”  
  
“Yes,” Flint tells him, voice gravelly, yet unemotive.  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
“I will see the pardons first, and then--” He hisses as the blade is dug deeper. “The pardons first,” he repeats resolutely, though the animalistic snarl belies the attempt at composure. Sweat mingles with the blood flowing down his forehead. He tells himself he deserves the pain, an equal measure of retribution for the heartache he has exposed Thomas to. There’s catharsis in that assurance. 

Abruptly, St. Coe draws his hand back, wiping the blade off on Flint’s collar. It is a humiliating gesture, but Flint sits through it impassively. St. Coe sheaths the blade and returns about the desk.   
  
James takes the slightest opportunity to glance down at the scarlet blot, dribbling blood and staining his already flecked shirt. He is momentarily concerned that this monster would interrogate Read and Bonny for the supposed location. No. This man would never consider a woman capable of understanding the complexities of navigation. Flint makes a point of showing no relief. Relief means fear preceded it. He will not permit this man to see his vulnerability.  
  
St. Coe is beginning to sound more reasonable, which means he sees that his intimidation has failed. “You will sign a confession and be hung mercifully tomorrow morning, or spend the last days of your life being tortured for information you do not even possess. Which option sounds a more pleasant exit to your wretched existence, Rackham?”  
  
Flint strikes a conversational tone. “By my reckoning you have four days to launch before your fleet will be too late to intercept the vessels en route. If I see the pardons before then, I will gladly assist with their recapture. If not, you will find me wholly uncooperative.”  
  
The Commodore’s brow lowers, and he shouts out for the guards posted by the door. Being manhandled tears at his wounded shoulder but there’s naught he can do but stoically bear the renewed pain. He’s been through much worse. He marshalls his expression as he’s jostled out of the polished wood chair.   
  
“Take him to his cell, and have Doctor Elkins see to him. Tell him to deal with what threatens only the prisoner’s life and mental clarity.”  
  
They don’t want him dying before his appointment with the executioner. Flint isn’t sure which side of relief and trepidation to come down upon.


	9. Chapter 9

Flint feels the deep incision gutter more blood with his hurried pace out of the naval headquarters. It’s not enough pain to cripple or even slow him. He has remained impervious blood-sodden, bruised to the bone, fractured and full of holes.  
  
He has marched on through the howling void of Thomas’ death, and of Miranda’s. Suffice it to say that a small wound to a non-crucial body part will not bend him to his knees.  
  
His feet remain underneath him, and he pays no heed to spectatorship from guards or fellow prisoners. He’s shoved into the cell once more, but this time does not fall. He shuffles to a corner, leaning on the wall as the door is closed.  
  
Roje steps forward. “Is that your blood?” He asks, the withdrawn coolness evaporated. Flint realises that he must look awful, to have stirred sympathy. These two men have seen untold human suffering.  
  
“For now.” He grits his teeth. “A doctor is coming to ensure I do not expire before the spectacle of my execution.”  
  
Roje looks at Julius, and then back at Flint. Flint is moved by this stranger's concern. He’ll blame the pervasiveness of Thomas’ sentimentality.  
  
“I’ve survived worse. I intend to survive any attempts to execute me too. You should put your mind to the same.”  
  
Roje nods, backing up.  
  
Flint closes his eyes and sets about the arithmetic of his survival. Four days of interrogation, then however long he can draw out the trial. He counts about another week before they will string him up. Silver and Rackham will find some way of mounting a rescue before then, he must believe. If he doesn’t believe that, the torture he is sure to face will be for no end. That would make it harder to endure. He hears approaching footsteps, and the familiar order that they all face the wall. He shuffles closer to it, but stays on his knees. The doctor is the one man who he must impress upon the frailty of his condition. Ideally he will receive comprehensive medical treatment, and remain able-bodied when the cavalry arrives to free Madi and Max. The door is pushed in, and in the yellowing lantern light, he sees a short and unassuming man with dark hair, flanked by armed guards.  
  
“Against the wall, prisoner,” comes the renewed order, and he staggers upright.  
  
The doctor huffs out a long breath. “Would you fetch me a stool?” he asks, and one of the guards is gone. “You’re Rackham, I assume.”  
  
Flint nods, turning his head a little.  
  
The doctor sits down on the fetched seat, motions him closer. He’s wearing a heavy silver cross about his neck, and his sleeves are rolled. 

James takes a few unsteady steps, kneeling on the floor before the medical attendant.  
  
The doctor looks afraid of contact, but bridges the gap, and tugs Flint’s shirt up to examine his still bleeding shoulder. “...I see,” he mutters, brow furrowing with what James hopes is concern. A pious man, with some pity for the wretched flesh of the condemned men he attends to. A bag is opened, and a short needle and thread comes out. The shirt is tossed aide. “Stay still, if you please.”  
  
Flint nods, and the needle comes up, pinching closed the short, clean slice. He makes sure he sways a little, but never enough to impede the stitching. The doctor examines his face, and decides that the injuries there do not require his attendance.  
  
“Thank you,” Flint says in a low tone. He isn’t sure when this man’s goodwill may save his life. Still, exposing any vulnerability rankles him. Even though the performance is completely under his control, the very idea that this man sees him as pitiful is almost untenable.  
  
The doctor frowns at him, touching his cross as he stands to leave. The door closes, and Flint returns to his corner and curls up to try and rest. Roje clears his throat.  
  
“Water,” he says, hefting the jug. Flint sits upright, and though some spills down his front, his parched throat is wetted.  
  
“I need to communicate with Max,” he tells Julius, who seems to have perfected secretive communique.  
  
“Later, when the guards are inattentive. I will wake you,” Julius tells him.  
  
Flint nods and shuffles over to lie on the pile of cane leaves. He must be fortified for the next few days, in which he imagines sleep will be deprived of him too.

 

 

He barely slumbers before a hand is shaking him, or perhaps he slept just enough to remind his body of how tired it is. He wakes tense and defensive, but it’s only Julius.  
  
“Flint. Max is there.”  
  
James nods, rolling upright. He gives no thought to how he looks as he presses close to the small window. He hasn’t spent any time trying to ingratiate himself with Nassau’s recently consolidated powerbroker, and has no desire to start now. Still, he has to tell her about the pardon request before she is blindsided and the ploy is accordingly outed.  
  
Max looks far younger without the thick black makeup he’s always seen her wear. She is soft and effeminate and unimposing, which he supposes is the best image to present in these conditions. He’s been caught cross purposes with her enough times to know she is of formidable intellect, and ruthlessly willing to exploit the charms of her appearance. He likes to think himself beyond the sway of such attraction. His defences are only lowered by blue-eyed, eloquent men with reckless plans to enlist him into.   
  
He’s pleased to register that there’s no forthcoming attempt at endearment. Her examination of his injuries is with cold hostility. “You told Anne to beguile the doctor who inspected her,” she says, before he’s even ordered his thoughts to begin explanation.  
  
His lips purse at what sounds like an accusation. “I was told it was your idea. Pleading her belly. Did it work?”  
  
She doesn’t respond except for an eyebrow raised in challenge. Trying to draw more from him.  
  
Flint scowls and drops the subject.  

“I’ve told Commodore St. Coe I will trade certain information for pardons for myself, and for you. They believe I risked my life to save you, and it seemed prudent to have my terms mimic priorities my earlier actions have implied. There’s no truth to any of it. I am simply delaying my trial. ...you may be asked about it, but the rigid cage of civilization will protect you from the animals these men can be,” he adds, deciding to extend some reassurance. Max is not moved by it. It’s as much information as she needs. “Would you thank Anne for not outing my identity as--”  
  
She scoffs. “She does not want a word from you.”  
  
“And how have I offended her now?” he asks, lingering amiability departing his tone.  
  
It takes her a moment, glancing over her shoulder. She is obviously weighing her words. “That doctor took liberties with her medical inspection. She-- she was convinced that cooperation would allow her to see Jack again.”  
  
Flint’s lip curls with disgust. “I didn’t tell her to--” he falls quiet, feeling the meaninglessness of his protest. When a loved one is hurt, the finer points of culpability are irrelevant.  
  
“What did he do?”  
  
“Does it matter to you?” Max asks, looking back into the darkness of the cell behind her. “And if she exacts upon him what is deserved, he will out the deception for what it is.” 

Flint finally sees the admission for what it is. The establishing exchange of a negotiation. “You want me to kill him.”  
  
“No. Then another doctor will be fetched to monitor Anne and Mary’s condition.”  
  
“But you want revenge.”  
  
“And I will cooperate fully in protecting your assumed identity.”  
  
It’s Flint’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Attacking the doctor might get him shot, and will certainly reduce the chance of his receiving adequate medical care. On the other hand, they plan to hang him anyway. A vicious attack on the man tending his wounds may well be a stolen handkerchief for all the weight it will bear on his sentence. They can only execute him once.  
  
“Very well. Would you tell Madi--”  
  
“She’s awake.”  
  
Flint doesn’t want to see her face, her wise eyes dissecting his motives. “Tell her that I’ve bought time for myself. She’ll want to know.”  
  
He ducks back into the shadow, jaw locked. He’s back to being seen as a rabid beast to be unleashed. He wonders if Thomas would recognize him now.

 

 

He dreams of black shrouded thing with twisting roots, lying in the garden bed beside their cottage and writhing half-dead in the soil. He can see Thomas inside, his finery and wig disarrayed by frantic pacing.  
  
He has some vague awareness that the horrible thing prostrate in the tilled earth is him. His eyes start open, and he shoves himself upright.  
  
The other two men are curled silently. His breathing levels out, and he feels foolish for startling. He’s prone to nightmares, but he thought he’d ceased to be haunted by that horrible phantasm. He misses Thomas again, and oddly misses Silver too.  
  
Silver talked him out of a cage before, from a more hopeless place. Silver would have some words of inspiration, and even if they weren’t within stretching grasp of truth, Flint would rise to them. Silver could make a man feel anything with his words. Flint heralded himself as immune, but perhaps he’s the most vulnerable of all. Silver’s lies to him were grandiose, enduring pretences. Like their partnership.  
  
His head hurts and he suddenly realizes how hungry he is. Perhaps these impressions of Silver are delirium brought on by bodily deprivation.  
  
He thinks the other men are asleep. He shuffles upright, stepping over to the offering of food in the corner of the cell he has kept to. What must have been his third of the bread, tossed into the cell for one of their timeless, unlabeled meals. Silver would tell him to endure any humiliation, any desperate act. Silver would tell him that survival is the only metric through which human action can evaluated. As he stoops down, first to his knees and then further onto his belly, the smell of yeast and rye catch in the back of his throat. He’s smothered by the smell of food and the wet delight of expectant hunger. He stops considering onlookers, leans down further and takes up the scrap between his teeth. When he has an adequate grip, he shuffles upright, shoulder stinging when he uses his hands against the wall behind him. He pulls up his knees, resting the sandy, stale bread clamped between them. He breathes in its scent. About the size of his palm, a rough cut of crust. He devours the whole thing in a few seconds. 

James finds himself waiting, again.  
  
The trepidation stretches thin over the indeterminable hours. More gruel arrives. He doesn’t eat, though he is supplied water with wordless routine. James cooperates when the guards come, though he knows he’s expediting his own trial, or his own torture. His choice is to walk of his own volition, or be beaten then dragged limply. Not that he’d capitulate for some self-defeating convenience. No, his fearless advance will be a personal challenge to St. Coe. Pride will be staked in being the man to break Jack Rackham.  
  
Flint is not steered towards the court, which is some dismal relief. He’s led outside again. He squints into the sunlight, met in return with dozens of civilians staring horrified at him. They truly see a monster. It heartens him, and he sends a cocky smile to the closest cluster, though doing so reopens his split lip. A mother wraps her skirts around two little boys gaping in his direction. The guards shove him on, and he does not stumble. He’s pushed back through the tall arched entryway into the naval quarters, but never makes it inside the grand building. A pillory has been set up in the gravelly courtyard, and he is led over to the heavy, splintery wooden framework. Finally, the chains on his wrists are removed. They ache immediately, but he has no time to stretch them out before he is pushed into an uncomfortable stoop. His head and hands are pushed into place, and the wooden stocks are locked closed.  
  
He is brought to heel in full display of the headquarters, and with the gate open that any passerby may see his predicament. He thinks the open windows on the second storey are that of Commodore St. Coe’s. The armed guards stand at attention on either side, awaiting their commands. He stretches his spine, letting the wooden board take as much weight as possible. Uncomfortable, but entirely bearable. They won’t try to break his spirit with mere humiliation, he knows. He takes a moment to breathe deep the salty, scentless air of an offshore breeze. There’s no putridity and human excrement invading his senses.  
  
The only thing keeping him above water is this historically unstable sand. He could sink right through it and into the ocean.

He achieves peace, for the slimmest window of time, and then the double doors of the sandstone structure part and St. Coe advances down with a satisfied sneer. Flint sees before him a man who has regained the semblance of a power dynamic bred into him. This aristocrat amongst the unpainted detail of his gilded globe. A man of good birth when survival means everything, and names mean nothing. It irks James, and not just for the personal vendetta against the class system that made his life as James McGraw so continually frustrating. He will not die to facilitate this man’s illustrious reputation when he returns to retirement in the safety of London society.  
  
Flint decides to kill him too.  
  
Two follow St. Coe down the front steps. They wear the plain clothes of workmen, and are both conspicuously unarmed amongst the outfited naval officers.  
  
“You said four days to launch, but that was yesterday. I suppose that gives us three.”  
  
Flint has noticed that silence bothers the commodore. He raises his eyebrows in sarcastic encouragement. Get on with what you want to do.  
  
St. Coe paces to his left, quickly out of his vision given he cannot turn his head more than an inch either way. He speaks from beyond sight: “You don’t want to make this easy on yourself, do you?”  
  
Flint wonders where the heavy pillory was brought from. Possibly from some town square, but he thinks it much more likely an instrument of forcing obedience upon this island’s many slaves. A man like St. Coe would consider that an injurious juxtaposition. Flint’s jaw grinds as he anticipates the flogging.  
  
He’s been whipped before, as a very young man, falsely accused of stealing by another sailor. When the truth could not be established, both accuser and accused caught the end of a heavy rope. Bloodied and shaking with pain, he’d impressed his innocence upon the older officer administering the punishment. Five years later he stood before his accuser as his commanding officer. Flint cannot recall the man’s name, but he can still acutely remember the feeling of rope burning across his skin. He was fresh then. A boy. He reassures himself that he has since been hardened to sensation.

St. Coe has rounded back to meet his eyes. He reaches into a pocket of his coat, pulling free a small bell on a leather wrist strap. A child’s toy, Flint suspects. St. Coe leans in and with an iron grip he contorts Flint’s fingers straight and pulls the leather up. The metal bell drops to the extent allowed by the restraint, and hangs there with a faint jingle.  
  
“For when you decide it’s time to be reasonable, Rackham. I’ll be able to hear it from my office.” He leans in a little. “These men aren’t going to spare you of their own accord. I allowed for volunteers who had lost something to pirates.” St. Coe’s expression becomes self-congratulatory. “...but I am a man of my word. When you are ready, I will stop them.” St. Coe raises his hand and lets it fall.  
  
When the first blow comes, Flint doesn’t flinch.


	10. Chapter 10

The schedule of punishment is regimented and metered. Ten blows, then what must be an hour of enduring the uncomfortable stance, and then ten more. They come in rapid succession, loud like pistol shot. Like the toll of a great clock they measure out his sentence. Then, silence. There’s only the ambient sound of the town outside the high walls of the courtyard as he awaits the next blows.

 

 

It takes only three of the hourly floggings before his back is shredded raw. If this continues throughout the night, for the full three days St. Coe threatened him with, it will be seventy two hours. That’s seven hundred and twenty lashes, Flint reluctantly calculates. He isn’t sure whether his body will endure that. Surely St. Coe doesn’t want him to die just yet. 

It hurts. Flint barely admits to himself how much it hurts. The agony of wounds opening, scabbing over, and then being torn afresh by the next increment of punishment delivered beyond his sight. His trepidation is interrupted by the breathy warning of a whip parting the air, and then the red hot agony as it stripes his tense back. It seems as if an invisible, divine force is inflicting the punishment.

 

 

He focuses only upon keeping the bell from ringing even with flinches of pain. He huffs and grunts but he will not scream. Saliva dribbles between his lips, head hanging heavy in the wooden restraints. Perspiration dots his forehead, dribbling down his plastered hair. Air whistles between his teeth as he tries to breathe between blows. He keeps himself distracted with his own personal prayer: lips twitching as he recalls passages from the nearly memorized 'Meditations'. Thomas’ velvety tone dictates alongside his own. 

He sees St. Coe’s face appear at the window. Too distant to make out the expression. Other men come and go from the naval headquarters, but their leering does not bother James.

 

 

The sun is dimming. The fifth set of blows rain down, the first reopening the bloody mess of muscle and flayed skin. Two. Three. His recitation is faltering. He skips entire paragraphs for quotes he may cling to.

_Consider thyself to be dead, to have completed life up to the present time._

Four. Five. Six. James spits out blood from his own broken tongue. Seven.

 _Live according to… to the remainder which is allowed to thee._  

James envisions himself as an empty vessel. When this is over, he will willingly think of his future, reassign himself an identity and a personhood. For now, he is a tethered corpse held upright by the pillory. You cannot injure a corpse. Eight. Nine. Oh, god. He barely contains the writhing scream attempting to split his lips. He will not sound out the depth of his suffering to spectators. His fingers contort and stretch unnaturally. He feels blood dripping down the back of his legs and onto his bare feet. Ten.

 

 

James is beginning to lose sensation as the sun sets. He is still anticipating the next assault, but far more than an hour passes and it does not arrive. He thinks he may slip unconscious, from the sheer exhaustion of prolonged suffering. The torn and bleeding skin of his back burns, but he can surmount and suppress his physical distress. He becomes aware of other pains that were rendered trifling by the day’s torment. His calves and neck burning with the awkward posturing. His dry throat scratching. The biting pain of the stitched shoulder wound. He settles with the sensations, acquainting himself and finding himself their better.   
  
There’s movement about him, as his guards are swapped out. A fresh night shift. His stamina will outlast them anyway. One of the arrivals steps forward, and a hollow stake is hammered into the gravel beneath his hanging head. The man grabs a handful of his hair, hoisting his chin. Flint’s lips tug to a sneer but there’s nothing he can do to resist. A second piece of the stake is slotted into the hollow, this one polished wood sharpened to a point. His head is released, but he keeps upright, wary of the spearpoint aimed into the soft flesh beneath his jaw. He will not be allowed to sleep overnight. He grits his teeth and continues his attempt to correctly order Aurelius’ thoughts on unity and order governing the universe.   
  
Some time later, as the sun’s red glow has mostly died, the gate opens and there’s lantern light illuminating the courtyard. Flint watches from the corner of his eyes, trying to identify the arrival. The doctor approaches. The dancing yellow lantern disappears out of James’ vision. He can see only his flickering shadow stretch up the sandstone building St. Coe must still be hiding within.

There’s a tutting from behind him. He feels the remaining tatters of his shirt being cut away from his back and shoulders. He grunts with pain as splashed water reminds him of every open wound. There’s a second lantern, which he tries to focus on despite his eyes swimming with the renewed pain.  
  
“Is he in danger of expiring?” St. Coe asks, as if inquiring after livestock.  
  
“I told you it would be too many lashes,” Doctor Elkins mutters. “He’ll not make it another day at this rate.”  
  
“I believe he will. You can see his scars. Jack Rackham has survived a great deal.”  
  
Flint’s teeth grind edge to edge but he is mute.  
  
“You will kill him before his trial. You asked my counsel on his health, here it is: you must stop this or he will expire before the sun sets tomorrow.”  
  
St. Coe huffs out an unrepentant note. Flint hears departure in the crunching gravel footsteps.  
  
The doctor paces around and wets his lips with fresh water, which he swallows gratefully. The small man reaches into his pocket, holding the lantern above a tiny book with gilt edges. The doctor murmurs out a prayer: a psalm, though Flint has not studied the Bible well enough to know the verse. He’d prefer Silver’s hollow promises now, but there’s a rhetorical appeal in his suffering having spiritual significance. He must remind himself not to become endeared to the good doctor, lest he hesitate when it comes to violently mutilating him. He doesn’t like the doubt he now holds in his own capacity for unflinching violence. This man took advantage of a young woman in an awful situation. Never mind that the woman in question might be the most proficient killer in the West Indies. The doctor must pay for that transgression with his blood.   
  
The night is long, but at least the pain is enough to keep him from impaling himself in sleep. 

Sunrise the next day brings five blows instead of ten. The burst of blood and agony retreats as he hangs in the rising sun, appraising the passing naval men as they arrive for their days work. Most seem perturbed by his presence. He hopes St. Coe is beginning to feel nagging doubt about his strategy. The dawnlight on the pale gravel is lavender and beautiful. He breathes in the sea breeze. He can survive this.

 

 

The elation fades fast. His resolve does not. The regimen continues.

 

  
  
The sun sets on his bloodied and bent form. The doctor washes his wounds again, supplies him with a little water that he immediately throws up. His eyes are bleary and his body feels alien to him. The pain is a separate entity, possessing him and warping him into the unknowable.

His exhaustion threatens every moment to overwhelm him. Now that there are no blows to jolt his body, he slips under. He comes to, with the filed point of wood stabbing right through his chin, jerking and cursing with the shock and the pain. The night stretches as he struggles to keep hold on reality. He hallucinates, vividly. Before him in the darkness he sees the same shrouded figure, awaiting him on the steps of the sandstone manor. He blinks and it's gone. In the corners of his vision there are frantic bursts of phantom movement. The darkness has come thickly alive. He thinks he may be fevered. Thomas voice is accusatory in his ear.

The sun rises. It is red. The gravel is white and horribly churning. Thomas’ voice is screaming indistinguishable, neverending crescendos in his ear.

The lashes hurt more than ever. He can’t count their number. The sun is overhead and burning.

Then it is setting.

The pillory is unlocked. The unrung bell on his wrist is yanked away. James is hauled upright and with feet trailing hopelessly he is borne back down twisting stone halls and on to the cold floor of a familiarly reeking cell. He curls into his own aching arms. He occupies the smallest space he can.

“Flint. Flint.” Roje is close, voice high with panic.  
  
He glances up out of the narrowest corner of his eye, and shakes his head slightly.  
  
“He needs a doctor,” Roje murmurs, and then is up on his feet and pressed to the cell door. “We need a doctor!”  
  
Julius is up smoothly, wresting the younger man away from the door before he can yell again.  
  
A doctor. Oh. The doctor. Yes. He still has a promise to keep, doesn’t he?   
  
Julius’ voice is furious but hushed. “Quiet. They don’t want him to die. A doctor will be on his way. Don’t give your own life for nothing.”  
  
“If they beat me I will survive,” Farrow snaps. “He won’t. Look at him.”  
  
“I’m not going to die,” Flint finally gutters out. The syllables scratch like an unresined violin bow. His hands are not shackled, so he can put them underneath himself. He does not yet have the strength to push himself upright. 

Julius approaches, finally stooping down. “Why did they do this to you?”  
  
Flint can’t begin to explain, so he simply shrugs. “Water?”  
  
Julius shakes his head. “We have already returned the jug. ...we did not think you were coming back.”  
  
“Nobody ever does.” Flint is silent for several seconds as he forces movement into his trembling forearms. He wrenches upright. The movement tears at his mangled skin, and he feels blood weeping from every split crevasse of scabs. He chokes with shock, but remains up to look Julius in the eye. “...when the doctor comes, you both stay as far back against the wall. Don’t intervene.”  
  
Julius looks perturbed by the instruction. “The situation has changed since you were taken.”  
  
Flint twitches with trepidation. “How?”  
  
“Anne and Mary were moved to a women’s holding yesterday.”  
  
Flint lips tug to a grim smile. They’ll be out within a few days, no doubt.  
  
“..a man has arrived from Pennsylvania. A lawyer. He is petitioning the governor for the release of those accused of assisting the maroons.”  
  
James has been extensively exposed to Thomas’ unyielding persuasion. He should not be caught off guard by how efficiently Thomas induced a lawyer into a distant crusade, but he is. A proud smile further splits his scabbed lip. “I--” Footsteps echo from the dark staircase and Flint changes tack. “Stay out of it. Whatever happens. This is my fight.”  
  
“Your fight? You can’t _fight_ in your condition,” Roje says, already backing up against the wall.  
  
Then the footsteps have closed in. Flint lies down, disobeying the order to back against the wall. The cell door is pushed open, and between his flickering lashes he sees the doctor advance into the cell.

“Get up, Rackham.”  
  
“Look at him. He can’t,” the doctor says quickly. The man draws closer, kneeling over Flint. “...pass me the water.”  
  
Flint is so happy to hear the words that he could almost forgive this man his trespass against Anne. Almost. The doctor turns his head gently and dribbles a little over his lips. He parts them and drinks deeply, but the supply is cut short. At least his throat is no longer barren and scratching as dry wool. He parts his lashes. The doctor is examining his back now. He grits his teeth as the wounds are doused with water, but stays still. Then there’s a horrible burn of alcohol being pressed against the cuts at his shoulders. Flint chokes and every muscle in his body writhes desperately.   
  
He barely keeps himself from jerking away from the medical care. Another press of the damp, burning clothe against broken skin. It takes several minutes before the doctor seems content with the decontamination, and begins bandaging the afflicted area. Flint exhales the breath he’s had held between clenched teeth. The doctor turns and begins to stow away his medical supplies. Flint shoves himself upright, exaggerating the tremble in his form.  
  
“Could you read me a psalm, doctor?” he whispers. “Please? I have seen no priest in this place.” 

The guards behind are scowling, but do not intervene. They look away from his prone and battered form, perhaps in shame.  
The doctor’s face contorts with indecision, but he reaches into his coat pocket, and removes the small Bible. He opens it, turning several pages, fingers brushing the page to find a passage. The half packed medical case rests beside them. Flint keeps his eyes away from its contents and waits until the man begins reading:  
  
“Lord, listen to my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy--”  
  
Flint topples forward. He crashes into the lap of the man, knocking the book out of the doctor’s hands and planting onto the stone by the deep leather bag. The armed guards swarm forward, boots loud in the hard stone cell.  
  
“Get up!” the closest orders.  
  
“It’s fine, it’s fine. He just fainted. He has lost a lot of blood,” the doctor is saying.   
  
Flint’s hand snakes out and wraps around his target: the handle of a surgical saw. He summons up the protectiveness budding for the fiery redheaded child who this man saw fit to impose himself upon. The doctor is shaking his bandaged shoulder. Flint rolls over, arm flicking up like a whip, the saw scraping on the cold tiles, arcing through the air. It hits the horrified face of the doctor before Flint’s eyes. The skin above his brow parts to swallow the metal serrations. They break into his still open eye and blood spits out like a grape squashed for wine. Then, chaos.   
  
The doctor is upright and bellowing with agony, stumbling back into the shocked guards. In a fight, Flint would have gone for his throat and killed him outright.   
  
Flint is not fighting.   
  
He scrambles away on all fours, snagging the tiny book beneath him, shoving it down the front of his blood drenched breeches. He curls up tight and still. He hears the discharge of a weapon, though it must misfire or miss him because he does not feel the shock a fresh wound.  
  
“Don’t shoot him!” Flint hears a guard yell. There’s a boot by his face, then a heavy blow to the side of his head. It’s the last thing he feels.

 

 

Someone is shaking his shoulder. “Water.”  
  
Flint shakes his head and tries to curl away from the sound. He wants to continue sleeping. Perhaps forever.  
  
“Water, Flint. Your trial is soon. You need to think of some way of delaying or they will hang you tomorrow morning. ...Flint.”  
  
He groans and rolls upright. He reaches for the jug being thrust in his face. He rinses his mouth and spits out the stagnant rust of his own blood. He swallows the rest of the water. He’s alive. For now. He is surprised to have survived, especially when the bodily agony catches up with him. He does his best to block it out and process the unfolding situation.   
  
His unsteady gaze casts about the cell to orient himself. Dried blood of the doctor. Oh. The book. He pulls it from beneath his waistband, opening it and pulling the flyleaf out at the binding. He shuffles over to the cane leaves, picking out a short, hard piece. He rolls it to a tight tube, and satisfied with the makeshift pen, he bites down on his split lip and then eases his blood into the thin crease of the leaf. He sets down the blank page upon the Bible’s cover, and begins sketching out the map he’s long had memorized. Blood does not make for effective ink, sticky and drying too fast. He presses his lip open to catch more of the dark flow. He works slowly and methodically. First, the navigation to the island, and then to the burial site. Julius and Roje are both watching as he finishes writing out measurements of paces, and extends it to Julius.  
  
“You must give this to Nanny.”  
  
Julius stares.  
  
“It’s the location of the cache. For your war. To keep your people fed and protected,” Flint murmurs.  
  
Julius reaches out, taking the paper. He stares at it first, and then at Flint.  
  
“I’m trusting you to deliver this to her, Julius. I don’t expect to be around to do so.”  
  
“I cannot deliver it to Nanny.”  
  
Flint’s jaw tightens, hands curling to fists. “Why not?”  
  
Julius rubs the short beard on his chin. “Madi knew that our cause needed a leader. She saw how effectively a united fealty could turn a rabble into an army. She saw what Long John Silver meant to the pirates who served him. How his story could inspire a people. So, she made a leader from nothing.”  
  
“So the raids that have been attributed to Nanny were simply disparate maroon factions?” Flint asks slowly, comprehension arising.  
  
Julius nods.  
  
“Elements of her mother and herself married into one fearsome icon to unite her people,” Flint murmurs. He is so proud his chest tightens with it. “Silver doesn’t know?”  
  
“She does not trust Silver. ...she does not trust pirates.”  
  
Flint's lips tug into a wry smile. Sensible of her, considering Silver’s previous attempts at sabotage.  
  
“I believe she one day intends to occupy the role. For now, her power in Nassau to assist us with supplies and information is too crucial to blur the line.”  
  
Flint nods. “The greatest general in a war is one who does not bleed, who cannot be executed, with no family or loved ones. A ghost,” he murmurs, shoulders sagging. “Smart of her. ...I’m going to write a second note. If-- if the rescue comes after my execution, I would appreciate it finding John Silver. He will be able to deliver it for me.” 

He pulls out the next page, mostly blank except for publishing information, shuffles into the relative privacy of the cell’s corner. He won’t be writing the treatise he’d want to leave Thomas, he hasn’t the writing space, the time, nor the tools. He’ll leave something other than the horribly sudden loss. Some enduring sentiment. At least beg Thomas’ forgiveness for his reckless actions. The guilt is like burning seawater in his lungs and his eyes. He relishes the pain he must inflict to reopen his lip for fresh ink.   
  
He begins in as fine a script as he can manage with the crude writing implement.  
  
_T. H. (care of John Silver)_  
  
_I have lost you once already. I do not want to again. I could bid farewell happily to the land and the ocean, to the light of the sun, to comfort of food and of drink. I could walk away from literature, from laughter, from every small joy that the living world has to offer. Not you. I do not leave you by choice, but by consequence of my own arrogance and impetuous acts. It is only just that I suffer the loss of you for what I have done, but I must ask you to bear the weight too, Thomas. Please bear it. My love for you will not stay in the ground with me. It will grow in our garden, fall with the rain, whisper in every breeze that buffets your perfect face. It will touch you as I long to always touch you. I know the force of my adoration for you. It is true and unstoppable. It will be everywhere and everything._  

He hears echoing voices and stops writing abruptly. No. Not so soon. He has so much more to say. tossing the book under the pile of cane, and hurriedly blowing dry the letter. Only one side of the page used. He did not even get to sign his own name. He shoves it into Julius’ hand, who folds it and tucks it into his shirt beside the map.   
  
The three men line up against the wall, Flint having to lean heavily on the stone for some meagre support. He has no plan for delaying his trial, and his mind is too dulled by exhaustion and agony to improvise one. He can’t take another beating right now. And then he hears the women’s cell being opened. They’ve not yet come for him. The voices are more audible now, engaged in discussion that he can’t make out. Julius is giving him a warning look, but he ignores it, and steps towards the door to better listen in.  
  
“--most improper. To allow money and influence to sway our justice system is to be corrupted in the most heinous manner.” Flint recognizes St. Coe’s voice immediately. He lingers just far enough to be out of sight, though it equally impedes his view of the men. “I must protest--”  
  
“Commodore, this is not a naval matter. I must insist upon making the decisions for the good of Port Royal and her commerce,” says an older, courtly voice that Flint does not recognize. 

“Do you know how those maroons will perceive our weakness, Governor? They will see an opportunity to burn Port Royal to ashes,” St. Coe argues.  
  
There is a third horribly familiar voice, presenting a level rejoinder: “With all due respect, Commodore, a set of public executions is ill suited to peaceful resolution of the conflict on your doorstep. We are used to the severity of punishment being amplified in times of war. It is a necessity to establishing law and order in volatile circumstances. I implore you to consider the inverse of this legal precedence. Port Royal will not burn. Leniency now will see this rebellion allayed, rather than stoked into a wildfire you cannot hope to douse.”  
Flint knows the gentle persuasion and yet disbelieves.   
  
He rushes forward frantically, pressing to the narrow gap. In the lantern's glow, and the faint daylight filtering down the stairs, he can make out the back of four well dressed men as they stand before the open cell. Commodore St. Coe is closest to him. His arms are folded, but he does not raise further protest.  
  
“These women are Max, Madi and ...Eme?” asks the tall man beneath a thick grey wig, stepping into the cell. A familiar wig. It is Thomas. Flint’s obscured vision dims with horror.


	11. Chapter 11

Flint’s legs bend lethargically. There’s an arm on him, and Roje is bearing some of his weight but also steering him backwards. Flint resists.  
  
“No, I need to--”   
  
“Quiet,” Julius growls.   
  
Flint swallows hard but stops trying to force his way back to the door. Could he fight now? Could he protect Thomas, if Thomas recognized him and stumbled in his deception? He can still hear the echoing conversation and though words are beyond him, Thomas’ gentle murmur is inescapable. He hears more footfalls. Guards he’d have to fight through. The panic clears momentarily, like midday sun eviscerating fog, and he rounds on Julius.   
  
“You have to tell John-- tell Silver to get him away from here. Do you understand? Get him far away from here.”   
  
“Who?” Julius asks in a hushed voice.   
  
Flint doesn’t get to answer. Not that he had an answer he could speak out loud. There’s footsteps outside their door and the bark of a prison guard.   
  
“Prisoners, against the wall.”   
  
Flint braces himself, doubly unsteady for the shock still coursing through his veins. How _dare_ Silver permit Thomas to come here? But James already knows the answer, knew it from the moment Silver appeared at their dining room table; there is nobody Silver wouldn’t sacrifice to save Madi. He hears the door grating its way open, hinges protesting.   
  
Then, as if beside his ear, directly to him, Thomas’ mild tone. “I have papers for the release of Roje Farrow, and Julius… no surname supplied. Would you please step forward?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Flint sees Roje blink with shock. Probably the first polite word he’s had in this place, at least from a white man. Then both men step from his line of sight, and Flint is staring only at the cold stone wall before him, and his clawed hands trying to keep steady. He should be happy about the releases, especially Madi’s. Farrow’s, too, considering the odd camaraderie developed in this cell. James can’t summon any positive emotions through the panic.  
  
“These men will see you escorted to the dock. There is a ship making ready for departure to Nassau. ...do you understand?”   
  
“Yes,” Julius says unevenly.   
  
“Excellent,” Thomas murmurs. There’s the sound of footsteps, leading away. _Good. Go._ But Thomas’ voice sounds again, unmoved. “I would like to say how deeply grateful I am at your facilitation of this release, sir. Our interests on Nassau have become so deeply destabilized that, without the release of these individuals, we may have been forced to sell all holdings on New Providence. My family and I will not forget your succour in this matter.”   
  
He wonders what family Thomas is referring to, but only momentarily. James grits his teeth, curiosity not even close to overriding his protectiveness. _Come on. Leave. Get out of this place._   
  
Thomas clearly doesn’t hear the thoughts being shouted in his lingering direction. “I take it this man is held on an unrelated charge?”  

“That, Mr. Guthrie, is the pirate Calico Jack Rackham. The reason your ship received the thorough search it did upon arrival,” St. Coe says with veiled unpleasantness.  
_Guthrie?_ Thomas, too, stands astride the knife’s edge of false identity.   
  
“...he was injured during his arrest?” Thomas asks politely. James knows Thomas’ tact, and infers the dismay at the swathe of bloody bandages.   
_  
Do not succumb to moralization, Thomas. Not now. Not in your precarious position. _   
  
“We were blessed to have a young doctor who saw to the ailments of inmates here. A devout man, who healed the sinful and the condemned out of charity. A truly good, and blessed man. This monster only last night did most cruelly and unwarrantedly attack and disfigure the poor man.”   
  
Thomas is sympathetic at once. “How is the good doctor’s outlook?”   
  
“He has lost an eye, and will bear the scars of the attack until Heaven itself admits him. He is lucky Rackham was restrained, or he would have been sent for our Lord far more swiftly than natural course would dictate.”   
  
“I see,” Thomas murmurs. Flint wishes more than anything he could justify himself. He cannot endure Thomas’ condemnation.   
  
St. Coe must sense cession of Thomas’ righteousness. Perhaps he’s just looking for an opportunity to intimidate. “Rackham, turn. ...Rackham.”   
_  
Oh, yes. That’s my name. _ He doesn’t respond to the order anyway.   
  
“Bring him around.”   
  
Flint barely has time to tense before there’s a guard at either side, throwing him away from the wall. He could try to fight, weak as he is. He doesn’t. Thomas witnessing the ensuing beating would make the reveal of his stolen identity far more distressing. A rifle nudges the side of his head. Again he flicks his hair into his eyes, keeping out of the lantern’s light thrust in his direction. How thick is the stubble on his cheeks? It must show his true colouring. How has the dye withstood time and weather? Don’t look too closely, Thomas. _Please_ don’t look closely.   
  
“Is his trial due to st--” and abruptly, Thomas stops speaking. James knows why. His bloody lips skew into a grimace.   
  
“His trial will be today. It would be underway now, but for the judge being called in on this maroon business.”   
  
James finally risks glancing up between the dividing curtain of dark hair, and meets Thomas’ gaze at once. The modishly dressed gentleman is horrified beyond words. Therefore, beyond necessary guile. James gives a tiny, frantic shake of his head, trying to snap Thomas out of it. Panic later. Mourn later. 

“You are very lucky we had apprehended him before your ship traversed his hunting ground. He would have been more than happy to deprive you of any valuables on board, and likely your lives, too,” St. Coe boasts.  
  
“Now we need only distress ourselves over the one hundred and four gun warship,” says the older man Flint has paid little heed to. He speaks in a slow, sinewy manner: taking advantage of his command of attention to extend out every sentiment spiderweb thin. The governor of Port Royal. Sir Nicholas Lawes. If Flint hadn’t heard him referred to as such earlier, the sharp disregard for a commodore of the Royal Navy would have given away his elevated position.   
  
“The Caduceus will be recaptured,” St. Coe says quietly, staring down at Flint, who catches his eye and gives a friendly smile in return. Might as well play the part of the irrepressible madman. Provide distraction from Thomas’ fumbling. Besides, Rackham would want his supposed end to be a chronicle of sensational defiance. St. Coe scowls.   
  
“So you have repeatedly told me, and I see no evidence of her redocked in our harbour. To exacerbate this peril, you remain staunchly unwilling to accept the help of a good family in securing our township’s borders,” Lawes intones.   
  
“A coffee plantation will not arrest the rebellion factions,” St. Coe mutters, signalling at the guards. They shove James upright, and turn him to cell’s far wall once more. He hears the door hinge grate, and then the heavy metal reverberating. He is stricken with the terrible knowledge that this may be the last time he ever sees Thomas. He trips forward, and then presses himself to the window to watch them depart. 

They have stopped in the hallway, St. Coe almost blocking the route out. “We need soldiers, not farmers.”  
  
“This fine man has promised me a militia of upwards of eighty men, who will guard the purchased estates.”   
  
“Nassau’s businesses have been turning vast profits while Port Royal diminishes,” Thomas says, finally finding his voice. James can hear the restrained rage directed at St. Coe, but only because he knows Thomas so very well. _Please don’t do anything stupid, love._ “It is so because my family have followed economic principles relentlessly, and achieved peaceful equilibrium in lieu of bloody conflict. I believe our contribution, besides restoring employment and stability to your citizens, can be to mediate the disputes occurring in Port Royal as ours in Nassau have been resolved.”   
  
“So you would have us embrace maroons and pirates in the name of penny pinching.”   
  
“Piracy is a scourge on our society and upon the free trade we wish to encourage in the West Indies,” Thomas says, maybe something personal in his tone. “The maroons are ...a more resilient and enduring threat, but a threat I believe can be better absorbed than forcefully eliminated. We have meticulously accounted the costs that arise from forceful repression of the maroons of Nassau: the additional security, the expense of rebuilding torched farms, the constant depletion of labour through escapees emboldened by fanciful stories of maroon armies. It is no meagre sum, Commodore. Wars are costly. The concessions we allow to reintegrate these maroons back into the Empire are markedly less so.”   
  
“Perhaps we could move this conversation to a less stagnant venue,” says the Governor. He has a handkerchief by his face. He scarcely looked the way of any prisoners, least of all the infamous Jack Rackham. By reputation, Flint thought Lawes a fierce persecutor of pirates. It seems the personal vendetta is St. Coe’s, and this man has simply been garnering credit for those who’ve swinging over Gallows Point.   
  
“By all means,” Thomas murmurs, one single glance back. Flint lurches away into the darkness before Thomas can betray himself.  

He hears the muffled conversation fade, and the smattering echo of footsteps mounting the staircase.   
  
He should be formulating a plan for delaying his trial. Instead, he sits with his arms curled across his bent knees, clutching in to himself. He needs to speak to someone. Thomas, Silver. Miranda. Madi. Gates. He’s frustrated with his own weak resolve. He’s brazenly stared down his own mortality an unquantifiable number of times. But he doesn’t think he’s ever had so much to lose. Thomas. ...Silver, perhaps.   
  
He can suddenly picture the younger man’s wry smile as if shining from the darkness inches away from him. Flint flinches away from it, light headed and crippled with pain. Madi is free. Silver will be able to pull himself together again.   
  
He hopes, fervently, that Silver and Thomas do not hate each other. He’d very much like for them to be friends. He’d like for Thomas and Madi to be friends too, and discuss literature and political injustices, if only Madi were not embroiled so deeply in her war. Madi’s future is too fraught with danger for James to really want Thomas involved.   
  
James struggles his way to rationality. The trial. He could feign unconsciousness when the guards appear to collect him. He’s not entirely sure that they wouldn’t simply try him in absentia, which would make for a very quick trial indeed. He could interrupt, argue back and nitpick. Insist upon his own testimonial. To drag on this judicial process over several days, just in case-- in case what? In case John is coming back? He has what he wanted. Madi is safe. Silver will not be sieging Port Royal again. James should, by every right, hate him for getting Thomas involved. He should have shot him in Savannah, at least in the shoulder. Thrown him out of the house. Why couldn’t he? Why couldn’t he say ‘no’? He stoops further into the protective hunch, trying to force Silver out of his thoughts. He sorts through the viability of delaying strategies, wishing he mental clarity instead of the fuzz of deprivation and suffering.

It’s not long before the guards' footsteps sound. Perhaps an hour. He hopes Thomas’ ship has already departed, though there is still the danger of it being chased down by the naval vessels anchored within Port Royal. Still, once he is departed for Nassau there’s no further danger of Thomas misstepping, or being recognized by some English émigré. Flint rests against the wall, waiting to be ordered back, and for the cell door to open. It doesn’t. He hears a muffled thump as something is shoved into the cell.  
  
“Dress yourself,” comes the next order.   
  
Flint huffs out a single note of amusement. They’ve supplied him a shirt, seeing as his was cut to ribbons by the whipping, and a pair of trousers not drenched in blood. He scoops up the clothing, tugs the shirt over his head gingerly, sure he’s reopening wounds when he raises his arms. He backs off into the darkness and pulls his trousers off, then the supplied pair on. As he laces them, he wonders if they were taken from a hanged man. It seems befitting, to dress a condemned in the attire of the dead.  

He cooperates as his hands are shackled, and while he offers token resistance he is careful not to provoke response. His next beating may well be his last. He is steered up the now familiar passageway. If the court was crowded last time, now it is teeming. Every hair breadth of space is occupied by a gaping men and women, all in Sunday’s best. A malicious ocean of sharp eyes and whispered curses. As he is steered into the accused’s cage, a hush falls upon the rabble. His trial in Charles Town was nothing compared to the publicity drummed up in Port Royal.   
  
He sees St. Coe, but not the Governor, or more importantly, Thomas.

“Order. Order.” Flint looks up keenly, but loses interest as the judge begins to pompously reiterate the charges levelled against Jack Rackham. His back hurts enough from the short walk up to the courtroom that he can barely heed the words.   
  
“...and with great malice, and forethought, did assault one Edgar Lowensworth of The Northern Wind, as will be testified by a member of your very crew who did perceive you both delivering orders, and setting into naval battle…”   
  
An eyewitness? Flint scans the seats to the magistrates left, behind the stand. He doesn’t pick Mary Read at first. She is wearing a modest blue dress, hair pinned back. The most striking aspect of her appearance is the shiner: deep purple lining the crease of her eye, swollen and sore. For a moment, he curses both Read and especially Bonny for crossing him.   
  
But Bonny is nowhere to be seen, and as he considers the injury, it seems most likely it was inflicted by one woman onto the the other. Anne would not take kindly to this show of capitulation. Testifying against another pirate is sacrilege to someone who sailed so long with Charles Vane. Mary must be a fair decent fighter to have survived Bonny’s wrath.   
  
Flint’s lips twist into a dark grin, but it doesn’t last. It occurs to him that Mary knows his true identity, and may be preparing to make it known. It matters not to him if he’s identified as Captain Flint before the court. He will still face the gallows on any identity he assigns himself. There is more to it than that, though. Mary can indict John Silver in the siege on Port Royal and make recourse inescapable. The full wrath of the Royal Navy would descend on Nassau town. Mary also knows Anne’s true condition, and could see her hanged beside Flint. Most importantly of all, she may have her suspicions about the release of Max, and Madi and Eme. She and Anne were very close, and Silver divulged the legal safeguard to Rackham and Bonny when pitching their strategy. Thomas would inevitably face scrutiny. That cannot happen. Flint knows he must not allow her to testify. 

He is beyond his own body as he interrupts the judge’s diatribe, chain rattling as he stands. “I’d like to change my plea, your honor. I’m guilty as sin. And you have not a fraction of my crimes listed here, sir. I proudly stand before you the most wicked monster in the West Indies, nay, the world. Your noose cannot kill the evil I have in my heart. I will haunt your town until it sinks into the fucking ocean. Fuck your town, and fuck your King--” and he’s cut off by a fist in his face. He grunts with pain, falling back onto the bench. The delighted outrage swells about him, animosity radiating from the onlooking crowd in jeers and taunts. He thinks he sees a woman faint, or at least pretend to.  
  
“Order! Order!” the magistrate continues to call. The hubbub takes minutes to abate. “‘Calico’ Jack Rackham, the court decrees that your time tormenting the good people of this township are at an end. I sentence you to hang by the neck until dead. Your execution will take place tomorrow morn, at nine o’clock, and may--” there’s further hysterics from the crowd, and judge begins shouting orders for the courtroom to be cleared. Flint stands too.   
  
“And fuck you,” he adds, pettily.  
  
“Get him out of here,” the judge shouts, flustered. Flint is manhandled away.   
  
He trips over his own feet, energy burned out of his body. It has left him an ashy and cold shell. His shackled are unfastened and he is cast onto the equally lifeless stones of his cell. The door slams on him and he can’t draw down breath. Perhaps because he just tightened a noose about his own neck. 


	12. Chapter 12

Flint finds the bible hidden beneath the cane leaves. He’s not religiously minded, and it offers him no particular comfort but to keep his mind occupied. He has to wait for his eyes to adjust to the dim light before he can read the fine text.  
  
He finds the psalm that the doctor began to recite, but his eyes skate over the words without deriving meaning from them. He can feel his last minutes slipping away from him and he ceases to resist the current hurtling him to his own death. There’s footfalls, but as the light is blocked off and reappears, Flint is relieved to see only an offering of food and the small wooden jug resting on the ledge of the cell’s small window.  
  
He hurries to collect them before they topple, drinking too much water before he reminds himself to be cautious. Can’t waste it throwing up. He’s not sure to what end he is keeping his strength now, but he’s too deprived that the action is not based within reason and possibility. The gruel tastes incredible, a sure sign of deprivation. He eats half, and then then sits the vessels side by side in the cell’s corner, refusing to look their way lest he be tempted to gorge himself. For a moment, the satiety passes for hope. Then his surroundings bear down upon him and he is crushed beneath his impending execution.

He should be a nervous wreck beyond sleep, but after allowing himself the last skerricks of food, and finishing most of the water, he finds exhaustion settling into his joints and muscles. There is no comfortable position, given the state of his back and shoulders, but on his stomach, with his grimacing face resting on the open pages of the bible, he settles. He may well be sleeping away his last few hours on this earth. There is no waste here.  
  
These are not hours that he wants to live.  
  
He pictures a better time, his ride through the cotton farms in Savannah, by Thomas’ side. Green and golden and as perfectly frozen as an ecclesiastic stained glass. It’s so beautiful it burns white behind his eyes. It’s gone and there’s nothing else.

 

 

He wakes sorer than ever, jolting himself back into his miserable knotted anatomy when he sleepily stretches. The wound on his back feels larger than life, heavy and parasitic. It itches and throbs and announces itself clamorously to his groggy senses. He knows to lift the bandages would be pure folly, but at the same time he’s sure there’s something malignant occurring beneath them that he wants to claw at and clean out of his flesh. He breathes between clenched teeth. It won’t kill him because it won’t have time to. He crawls limply to the last of the water, drains the jug, and rests his forehead against the stone wall. He has no measure of the hours elapsed while he slept. Considering he awoke seemingly naturally, it may well have been half a day.  
  
He places the jug and the bowl back on the ledge as he had seen Roje do. It’s a very proud way of begging for more sustenance. After a period of forlorn anticipation, the receptacles are taken and not returned.

 

 

Flint is reading Deuteronomy and meditating upon Moses’ death when he hears a purposeful arrival. He stands abruptly, fighting fatigue. He has nothing to improvise into a weapon, so it is with bare clenched fists that he hunches himself into the cell’s corner. He is poised for the thinnest opening, as a fencer times his riposte. A very tired, very weak fencer. He knows the hopelessness of trying to fight his way out, but cannot abide falling into his grave. If they are unable to see him, the door will never be opened. He must try something. But the cell doesn’t open. The rhythm doesn’t pauses by his door, but the figure passes close by. There’s a muffled thud. James stays still, listening to the retreat. He draws closer to the mysterious bundle. It is wrapped in light hessian, which he opens.  
  
Beneath is an indiscernible collection of leather straps. At first, he suspects it to be a horse’s bridle. As he holds it to the light, it becomes even more perplexing. A collection of connected belts, and a brassy hook. He turns it the other way, and then sees a small folded paper still caught in the hessian. He scoops it between two fingers, holding it to the light.

 _The Straps are to be tightened around Legs and under Arms beneath Clothing. The Hook should rest out of sight below the Collar of your Shirt_  
  
_As the Noose is pulled tight, you must cause a Scene to distract. Perhaps more Abuse levelled at the Crowned Monarch?_

_Please resist the Temptation to do Anything incredibly dangerous until then_

It is not signed, and yet Flint recognizes the petulant tone as if John Silver was lounging opposite him, levelling attitude with eyebrow raises and tightly squeezed exasperation. Was John in the courtroom? In disguise? The crowd was certainly thick enough to conceal someone, but James is vehement he would recognize Silver amongst a legion.  
  
A spy reporting on him, then. And presumably another such delivering this contraption. _Could he not have supplied me with a fucking sword? A pistol? Hell, a key?_ He glowers at the collection of leather straps and then realizes the folly in leaving his salvation exposed for a moment longer than it need be. He strips, reminded of John’s prosthetic as he fastens the straps about his thighs, cinching them tight and buckling them in place. Then he grimaces. His shoulders. _Fuck._  
  
He eases the leather into place over the bandage, grinding his molars in anticipation. He huffs out as he tightens the leather strapping, feeling the entirety of the contact as if pressing a red hot metal bar into his own skin. Then the second one. Finally, arms bent awkwardly behind him, he cinches the two pieces together, hissing out at the pain of anything contacting the mess of injuries. He pulls the shirt on, glad the fabric is dark enough to conceal what is beneath. He smooths across the lines of hidden leather with trembling hands.  
  
It’s obvious at the touch, so he’ll have to cooperate enough to avoid being dragged out of his cell. He wonders if John has a back-up plan in case the ruse is discovered. Probably, knowing Silver’s penchant for fall back strategies. All at once, a warmth floods his insides. He’s being filled brim with rising, fragrant mead, restoring all life to his limbs and bringing an irrepressible flash of a grin. He didn’t think John had one single plan to save his life. 

He stuffs the hessian rag into the foul pot set in the far corner, assuming nobody will be looking to empty it before he is taken out of the cell. He holds onto the note. Sentimentality, he supposes.  
  
He finds himself reading and rereading the scant sentences. Miranda would just ache at the lack of care John showed for correct grammar. Falling for the fad that she had complained at in Aurelian Cook’s essays. One of her pettiest of grievances, though he can immediately recall how she wrinkled her nose when he presented her the stolen book. Titus Britannicus. She’d asked him if he intended it as kindling. James slips into a fond smile at the jolt of memory. John is no essayist. He is an orator. His written script is just as clumsy as when dictating the Urca de Lima’s schedule. Though he knows naught of John Silver’s past, he long suspected some formal schooling simply for the eloquence of the young man. If John Silver had spent any time whatsoever in a classroom, he would have had this illegible scrawl thrashed out of him. Flint realizes he’s clutching the note like a love letter.

 

 

Flint is relieved when they come to hang him. The straps grow more irritating the longer they niggle at his bandaged back. He finds himself uncharacteristically passive in his own fate. He doesn’t know precisely how this piece of theater will proceed, and only hopes that the straps will be removed soon after his simulated hanging. Bizarrely, he finds himself trusting John Silver. Flint puts his wrists through the window to be shackled. He expected to be sent a priest, apparently it has been decided his soul is beyond salvation. Perhaps they saw his gory artwork on the doctor’s face, and were too afeared to visit his cell. The notion raises his chin proudly. His feet are shackled too, and he is escorted up past prisoners pressed close to the bars of their own cages, desperate for one glimpse of celebrity.  
  
Flint ignores them all. One foot after the next, into the blistering sunlight.  
  
He advances like a carved figurehead, wooden and elevated as he parts the writhing seas of onlookers. He is flanked all about by the naval officers, who are forced to elbow their way into the fray. If anything, there is a greater turnout for his hanging than his trial. The base desires for public bloodshed manifesting in cruel jeers and countless eyes wide and inhuman as livestock. A child throws gravel into his face. He doesn’t flinch, but allows the contemptuous sneer to play across his lips as he surveys the turnout. The guns about him raise, as if expecting last minute resistance, but Flint mounts the steps to the gallow with no hesitation.

The noose is as short as Anne Bonny had hoped, but the barbarism should work in his favour. Less chance of a broken neck, in any case. A hooded executioner awaits by the lever, and Flint is pushed by him forward onto the unsound wooden square. One of John’s men, he must trust. That’s all he can do now. Trust the onlookers will fall for this trickery. Trust the harness will support his weight without garroting him. The strange peace is settled into his breath, into his steady gaze, and his near religious conviction in John Silver. 

The crowd seethes with whispers as order is called. The man addressing him over a large parchment is not the magistrate, who he cannot see, but a young and unfamiliar man in an ill cared for wig.  
  
“Jack Rackham, you stand before the eyes of God, guilty of high seas piracy, murder, theft, and violent trespasses beyond all the decency of mankind. For these crimes against the Crown and against your fellow men, you will be hung by the neck until dead. May the good Lord grant you all the mercy you are accorded.” 

With little no warning, the executioner is pulling a rough black sack over his eyes, tugging it into place. He thinks he feels a hand reaching into his shirt for the lifeline he has concealed. He’s not certain. Suddenly he is terrified he may never see Thomas again. He gulps for breath at air that feels as thin and tenuous as his own mortality. Then, the noose is bumping his nose and his chin, settling around his neck. Flint can’t breathe to yell out anything distracting. The first syllables are choked. He squirms in place, the executioners hands on the back of his neck keeping him from ducking out of the noose.  
  
“I will be back to sear the flesh off every man, woman and child with the flames of Hell! You should all--”  
  
Then there’s nothing beneath his feet, as disquieting as a missed a step in the dark. His stomach lurches, and he falls for what feels too far. He is caught mostly across his shoulders, but the rope at his neck digs in hard even if it doesn’t tighten enough to choke him. He has one second of relief that John’s contraption actually worked before the pain hits him. The leather strapping destroys any attempt at healing his gouged flesh has done. It drowns him blistering hot and overwhelming. He is no longer in his own body. He is swallowed by a milk-thick black sea.

 

 

There’s movement at his throat.  
  
“Dead,” comes a gravelly voice he’s sure he recognizes. The vexing choke of contact is gone.  
  
Flint becomes aware of light, and almost blinks his eyes before the memories settle in. Dead men do not blink. He keeps himself as limp as the hooded executioner hefts him away. 

He can barely make out his surroundings between his lashes. He’s thrown unceremoniously down, hitting some manner of hard floor, conforming to the shape. There’s the sound of a horse, and of cheering celebrations, and then the world beneath him shifts and jolts. A cart, then. He drags down several deep breaths against the scratchy wood. He’s being pulled upright and set against confining iron bars that eat into the flesh of his back, keeping him painfully rigid. He can feel blood trickling down his back from the reopened wounds.

Through the lashes he desperately tries to keep from flickering, he sees the familiar eyes of his executioner. Blue and hateful. A familiar stretch of scar beneath the right. And then the gibbet clangs closed. A heavy padlock clicks.

The crowd has caught up, but the gibbet is being hoisted before any of the raucous bloodsport spectators draw too close. The cage sways with each tug on the chain elevating it, eventually coming to rest high against the red bricks of what Flint, from his new viewpoint, recognizes as the dilapidated Fort Charles. There’s still burned expanses of timber roofing not yet cleared, and rubble strewn down the choppy cliffs. He tastes sea spray on his tongue, feels the surging wind and the sun’s warmth. He does not feel freedom. The caging digs into his body, and he tries to lean in such a way that his back is spared the brunt of it. There’s not much he can do in the tight confines. He is trussed up before the thinning crowd, displayed for the entire town as a taxidermied predator stuck in a final snarl. There is a line of sight straight to Commodore St. Coe’s window, in the tall sandstone building Flint became so familiar with. The man intends to keep a watchful eye on his trophy. Here swings the body of a dreaded pirate, in answer to the below devastation he had inflicted upon Port Royal. 

James is now certain that the violence done upon this town thus far is but the first glimpse of an almighty and unavoidable retribution.


	13. Chapter 13

The sun drops beneath the swaying horizon like a pendulum toppling away from a decrepit grandfather clock. A wind has risen, shaking the cage and pressing his aching body into renewed discomfort as the iron bars remind him of his endurance over the last several days. The dark rushes in on the glowing town, and he hears drunkenness emanating from the large building he takes to be the local drinking establishment. He smells food, too, and his stomach clutches into itself with want. He is lightheaded and vague. Blood loss, dehydration, or starvation, he couldn’t say.   
  
He has had no opportunity to remove the leather straps digging into his shoulders, and between that and the harsh metal bars he is beginning to fear he will give away his own continued survival by dripping blood onto a passerby.   
  
The sounds of merriment are dying down, and he is stoically hardening himself to another’s day survival when the first explosion of rubble erupts above his head.   
  
He didn’t see the ship making a near identical approach around the spit of land to Port Royal’s east. He can only take it that the night’s watch did not either. There’s the clamour of movement, orders shouted in tones of veiled panic, and then another chorus of impacts. One hits scarcely three feet from Flint’s left, sending bricks smashing against the gibbet. The cage wobbles precariously. He deliriously decides that his rescue is going to kill him. 

He sees that what he thought to be the one ship is in fact a pair, not far apart as they cut forward into the cloud of shot smoke thrown up. At least the barrage has stilled to a more strategic fire, though Flint knows he is without any hope should a shot knock his cage free and send him crashing to ground. There is scant returned fire, with the eastern outlook of Fort Charles already largely destroyed. He wonders at the lack of retaliation from the mainland forts for one moment before he hears a second cry of alarm go up. Too far to see anything but the churning bodies as they tumble into the yellow light of the township. He hears a woman screaming, and gunfire.   
  
The men manning the fort have realized their folly in drawing back and leaving the town unprotected, but there are raiders climbing through the split hull of the fort before any new tactics can be adopted. The arrivals are ghastly in the mottled light, each wearing cloth hoods with dark holes at the eyes. Some fall in the rifle fire, but more clamber over those bodies in an irresistible horde. He recognizes the woeful symptoms of panicked retreat as naval officers break formation and are cut down all. 

One of the hooded figures is pointing up at him, and he hears indistinguishable conversations drifting up as the chain keeping him raised is examined. Back in the township there is fire rippling across swathes of buildings. Flint sees the sandstone courthouse bathed in scarlet light.   
  
He hoped St. Coe was among the slain, but perhaps he wants him to survive this crushing defeat at the hands of pirates.   
  
And then, eventually, the cage is rattling downwards, jolting him painfully as it finally hits solid earth, tipping back into the brick wall. A man is hacking at the padlock, once, twice, and then the confinement gives and James presses forward. He tumbles to ground, legs uncooperative, vision grey with exhaustion. He doesn’t have a chance to recover. There’s a man on his either side, carrying him uncomfortably. He’s pulled down steps, past a blazing storefront, and onto the sand of the beach. There, the two carrying him halt abruptly. There’s an approach from the other direction, but weapons are quickly lowered. Another hooded figure. James can hear the crackling fires in the stretching silence. Beyond that is the echoing mayhem.  
  
“I’ll get him to Silver. Go back and secure the fort.”  
  
Flint recognizes the voice, and the bold ring of an order. The real Rackham. The men on either side set him down into the cool sand. Flint tries to stand of his own accord, but can’t. Rackham makes no move to close the gap between them. Further down the beach, Flint sees boats being filled, rowed out towards the warship and her partner. Silver is so close.

Jack pulls off the thin cloth mask. There’s dark pigment, perhaps charcoal around his eyes to complete the menacing illusion that seems have been adopted by every member of the raiding party. The black has run down in wet lines, across the stubble that has filled in his normally manicured sideburns. He is holding a pistol loosely in his trembling hand.  
  
“Where’s Anne?” Flint asks weakly, slumped over onto his knees. He looks up at the sound of the hammer cocking.  
  
“The wind blew embers onto the women’s prison. Thatched roof, and all wood,” Jack says hollowly, eyes glazed. He levels the gun at Flint, though the actions seems more detached than revenge should be. “It was an inferno by the time I reached it.” He swallows, a fresh outpouring of tears that he seems to have stopped restraining. Flint feels unexpectedly stricken by the news. Jack is mumbling still: “It’s my fault. I should have drowned the damn cat.”  
  
It’s nonsense to Flint, but he raises his hands.   
  
There’s no retort from the gun. James watches the dark and endless hollow of the pistol dance in his direction. Jack doesn’t want to do it. He just wants a palpable action to express the enormity of his loss.  
  
“Please don’t shoot. I have loved ones waiting for me,” Flint says, slurring the words a little with pain and exhaustion.  
  
Jack’s eyes finally focus, mouthing the words ‘loved ones’ in near disbelief. 

“Did Jack Rackham have an honorable death?” he murmurs, almost inaudible over the chaos in town.  
  
“Yes. I made it so.”  
  
He nods at that. The gun rises away, and Flint realizes he’s been holding his breath. Jack smooths his eyebrow with the knuckle of his trigger finger. The pistol remains up, pointing aimlessly into his own temple.  
  
“Don’t,” Flint says, quietly, more of an order than anything else. Jack is beyond him, out to sea, to the ships anchored off shore. With the same glazed look in his eyes, he holsters the pistol.  
  
“Can you stand now?” he asks, extending a forearm.  
  
Flint nods, though he relies heavily on Jack to heft him upright. He can’t support himself once standing. Without acknowledging the help he is supplying, Jack steers them back down the beach towards the longboats being loaded with plunder. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve, before they’re within sight of the men. Flint stumbles as he climbs on board, leaning heavily on a crate and closing his eyes, close to fainting.    
  
“We’ll need to go to The Caduceus. He needs their doctor,” he says to the hooded man holding the oars. The jostle of movement is strangely comforting to Flint, as the boat begins rocking its way offshore. He could fall asleep here so readily. Almost back to John. Not Thomas, if John did as he asks, but he too is so close. He could practically touch them both. 

His eyes are closed when the boat suddenly rocks. Jack is on his feet, manic eyes set upon the shoreline.  
  
“ANNE!” he bellows.  
  
Flint pushes somewhat upright. The red glow has mounted up from Port Royal’s smouldering belly, filling the bay with hellish bright. Amidst the carnage she stands, hair free and coppery in stark contrast to the hooded figures around her. Her largely silhouetted figure turns towards her name, and then she’s rushing forward into the ocean. She disappears amongst the choppy waves and Jack sits abruptly.  
  
“Stop rowing. Stop. Stop the damn boat.”  
  
Jack inspects the water relentlessly, racked all over with shakes. His lips are parted, mumbling what may be a prayer under his breath. Flint shuffles upright as the filled brim longboat gently rocks. The drenched figure clambers aboard. Anne is wearing the same simple dress, though it has been cut raggedly to knee length. Her eyes are ablaze. She and Jack meet, arms clutching, lips pressed together in unrelenting need.  
  
“You’re-- …Anne, where _were_ you?” Jack wheezes, hand at her cheek, bodies still pressed inescapably as conjoined twins.  
  
“Heard the guns and figured it was time to bust out before anyone decided I was leverage. ...had my own business to take care of.”  
  
“Business..?” Jack starts to ask, relief still choking him. He doesn’t bother pressing it.  
  
Anne looks over at Flint. He now notices the not quite washed out bloodstain across the bodice of her garment.  
  
“He looks like shit. Shouldn’t we be getting him to a doctor or something,” she asks, frowning heavily, and then in a gentler voice she speaks directly to Jack. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Darling. Please, please don’t ask me to forgive you for endangering yourself like this quite yet,” he whispers, slumping down loose-legged. Anne goes directly with him.  
  
Flint finds himself smiling, though he hides it against the crate he leans on. His forearms are the perfect luxury. Soft, and yielding. He hears Mary’s name, but can’t concentrate on the conversation any longer.

 

 

He awakens unsteady, feeling the boat move unusually beneath him. Jack and Anne are gone, as is the other, hooded man. Just his sprawled form over leaning heavily upon the crates. Then he sees a hull passing close, and realizes he’s being hauled aboard. He closes his eyes again, serene to his fate. Now that he has cause to stop fighting, surrender is the easiest thing in the world.  
  
“Is that him?”  
  
John. Oh, John. Flint blinks and tries to make his friend out from the dark shapes surrounding him, but can’t.   
  
He hears someone cursing, and he’s being hauled upright. Orders being yelled. He wonders who Broadbent is, and concludes that it must be the doctor. Finally he sees John’s face, but only from a distance. Anne’s there too. He’s behind a door and an unfamiliar man is parting his lips. His mouth bursts with bitterness, the sting of alcohol, and sickly sweet cinnamon. He is rolled about, and feels his clothing being tugged away, and finally hands working at the leather straps. Silver’s voice is telling him to be still. All is calm and James is gone. 

 

 

Flint’s lips are stuck together. He notices that, and the light, and the pain, despite the smog his mind is absorbed within. He groans and attempts to roll over, though he’s at once caught by confining bedding. He hears an approach but cannot summon the energy to check whether or not it’s a threat. Surely not another attempt on his life so soon.  
  
“James?” murmurs the unmistakable John Silver.  
  
James swallows and his lashes flutter as he begins to catalogue his surroundings. He doesn’t recognize the interior of the great cabin, but on dimensions alone he knows it to be The Caduceus. And there’s John, sitting close and peering nervously down on him. He blames the laudanum for how fascinating he finds the intent, azure eyes. He swallows again before he speaks. “So. You burned Port Royal.”  
  
“Port Royal burned itself,” Silver murmurs, watery gaze no less fearsome for it. His fingers are threaded tight into the bedding by Flint’s legs. James watches them bunch harder, knuckles shimmering skeletal white. Relief?  
  
Flint hums hoarsely. “Rackham?” he guesses, gesturing weakly a dark bruise he cannot miss upon Silver’s cheek.  
  
Silver’s lips twist into a wide grin, though his eyes are still glistening. “Thomas. He didn’t approve of my plan to see you hanged.”  
  
“ _Thomas_ hit you?”  
  
“Throws a decent punch, for an intellectual.”  
  
Flint frowns, sitting upright. “You didn’t--”  
  
John’s hand is on his chest at once, stilling him. Flint is overwhelmed by the miniscule contact. “Of course I didn’t retaliate. Thomas is safe with Madi, in the maroons’ camp to which we’re headed now. ...he wanted to storm Port Royal immediately. I told him that it would be much easier to guarantee your safety in such a raid if you were out of harm’s way before the furor began.” 

Flint has to think about that for a few seconds. “You call being chained defenceless like a target for your warship’s guns, _out of harm’s way_ ?”  
  
John winces. “I had word that Rackham’s body was to be gibetted on a small islet before the harbour. Obviously, the plan changed.”  
  
Flint rolls his eyes a fraction, but he’s satisfied by the explanation. There’s a small table set within reach, a small dish of fruit by a heavy ceramic jug that is utterly misplaced upon a pirate’s ship. He reaches for the water, but John cuts him off, picking up the jug and pouring a cup, settling it between James’ palms gently.  
  
“Stop fussing,” Flint mutters as he takes a sip.  
  
John smiles a fraction. “You broke my ankle.”  
  
“What? When?”  
  
“When you pushed me through a fucking table and stormed off into the hands of Port Royal’s authorities?”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“My one ankle. And you broke it.”  
  
Flint’s lips tighten with a frown, and he looks down. John’s ankle is indeed bandaged and splinted. A pair of crutches is propped against the bed. It must be very awkward to maneuver with.  
  
“I landed awkwardly on account of the prosthetic,” John explains, with a rough smile.  
  
Flint is thoroughly disconcerted. Silver has been rendered more helpless than ever, yet there’s apparently little or no resentment. “Oh,” he says, again lost for words.  
  
“Yes, the great Thomas Hamilton hit a cripple. I can scarcely believe how misled I was about his august moral standing.”  
  
“Stop it,” Flint growls, but softens irrepressibly as he looks down. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”  
  
John looks bemused by the sentiment. “You must have known you did me some significant damage.”  
  
James simply shrugs.  
  
“...I see. You thought I saw the wisdom in your stupid plan, and opted to cooperate.”  
  
Flint blinks away the fog, eyes focusing and narrowing. “It was a fine plan. Your men were the ones who fucked up and compromised our route into the prison.”  
  
“You could have died, you idiot. By the state of your back, I’d say you came damn close to it.”  
  
“I would have died anyway if you’d launched your suicidal landed attack,” Flint says with a scowl.  
  
“If you'd cast your mind back to your rescue from Port Royal, you might recall how well my landed attack worked. Besides, I would have had you stay on the ship.”  
  
“You couldn’t make me stay onboard if--” Flint is cut off by Silver leaning in, driving out any space between their faces. Silver is frantic in his movement, yet gaze remains hyper-focused and entreating. Asking for patience. Or forgiveness. Then he is pressing his lips against James’, half open, warm as late afternoon sun, and gone too soon. 

Silver settles back on the bed, voice reedy with anxiety. “Thomas told me to do that.”  
  
Flint is dumbfounded, and he cannot wholly assign blame to the drug in his system. His tongue runs over his lips before he speaks. He can still taste John Silver upon them. “Before or after he punched you?”  
  
“After,” John says in the same jittery tone. “When he came to apologize for assaulting me. Very gentlemanlike. I hadn’t the heart to tell him how regularly I have been beaten, with how earnest he was about his wrongdoing.”  
  
“Oh. And what else did Thomas say?”  
  
“That ...I needed to be honest with myself, and with you, if I’m to ensure your ongoing safety. Actually he was a lot more eloquent than that. But that’s the gist of it, to the extent that I understood it. ...for God’s sake, can you please say something?”  
  
Flint screws his eyes closed for a moment in an attempt to gain control of his hurtling pulse. “...I don’t know what this means to you.”  
  
“What else could I possibly mean by this?” John asks, frustration making him curt. “Obviously I know you’re in love with him. I know your heart is full and you have no desire for this extra complication to your idyllic--”  
  
“John.”  
  
John continues, near hysterical. “But here you are resurrected, and I can finally voice that which I expected you to never hear. So, you have to hear it. I think you’re too weak to physically expel me for the time being.”  
  
“I could still physically expel you,” Flint says with more confidence than he feels. His hand raises outstretched for John’s, wincing a little to move his back. He mends the gap between them, taking the hand of the younger man tentatively, brushing his thumb over the back of his hand. John watches with trepidation, as if waiting to be struck. “I love you too.”  
  
“I love you,” John answers, the sentiment jumbled and out of sequence. Flint’s smile is brief and exhausted.

“Perhaps we should talk when I am not addled by laudanum,” he murmurs as he reclines back down. One hand extends, missing the dish of fruit, spidering around for it. Eventually he has a small handful of grapes. He eats them one by one, eyes closing at the luxury. His stomach resists the meagre consumption, but he’s surely tired enough to sleep off the upset. The bedding is deliberately confining, to keep him on his front and off the mess of bandages his back has been rendered.  
  
John’s voice is softer. “A fine idea. How is the pain? I can fetch--”  
  
Flint shakes his head, burying down against the luxurious pillows that are certainly a remnant of Captain Adams’ captaincy of The Caduceus. “No. I don’t want to dull myself any further. How far off the camp are we?”  
  
“An hour, I think? I can have Mr. Naughton bring his nautical maps for you to look over. See if you can’t scrape twenty minutes off his estimated journey.”  
  
“Christ, no.”  
  
John chuckles. “He’s been very concerned for your wellbeing. I believe the dislike may not be mutual.”  
  
Flint scoffs into the bedding. He has almost given in to sleep again, but forces himself to relay a sentiment that feels of utmost importance. “John... thank you. For coming back.”  
  
Silver turns his head from where he’s hitching himself up on the crutches. Flint watches with half-closed eyes, a stab of guilt when he sees the flickers of pain manifest between John’s brows as he must bear weight on his prosthetic. Then John notices James’ observation, and any discomfort is concealed abruptly. “You know, I have always seen myself capable of orchestrating my own fate. Even at my lowest and most hopeless, I clung to my belief in each man’s domination over his own destiny. So I hope you understand me to the fullest extent when I say that in this matter, I had no choice.”


	14. Chapter 14

Low voices permeate the peaceful slumber that James shakes himself out of. The pain is worse, but in turn, the smothering blanket of opiate has been lifted away from his mind. He grits his teeth and heaves upright, reaching for the water again.  
  
“--then have one of the maroons confirm that our accounting is accurate. We’re not unloading our entire prize only to reload our share of it. We need to reach Nassau before the Navy can repair a ship and notify Lieutenant Mcintyre. The bulk of--” Silver pauses mid-sentence, spotting James’ movement.  
  
“Captain?”  
  
John carries on, distracted. “The bulk of our cargo is the seized weaponry which is theirs by right, so begin unloading those crates immediately. We should retain only the munitions we need to guarantee our unimpeded return to Nassau. That will signal our goodwill. The last thing we need right now is a clash between pirates and maroons over what plunder is owed to each party. If they quibble, pull rank, and have them send a party to negotiate rather than any shows of force. ...that’s all.”  
  
Flint has swallowed a few mouthfuls of water, alert and aware. They’re halted, which means Thomas is in a tight vicinity of the vessel. His impatience has him thrumming with energy, and he’s surprised Silver displays none of his eagerness. Madi is close, too.   
  
He waits for the crewman to leave before he speaks. “You’re not disembarking?” he asks, the question bearing more weight than any iron-packed crates.  
  
“With my ankle broken, and our departure so soon, it would be an unnecessary hassle,” John says, inspecting a parchment without looking up. It’s a calculated blow to silence Flint with guilt. One he seems to immediately regret. John drops the paper with a frustrated huff, and meeting Flint’s eye he proffers the truth instead: “It’s precisely as I said when I first pleaded your assistance in this matter. Saving her life has changed naught between us. I would rather not see her.” 

A heavy sadness settles into Flint’s expression. “John, she loves--”  
  
John cuts him off with terrified urgency. “You cannot know what she feels for me. I don’t believe even she knows, but she is smart enough to sense the schism between our priorities. Her heart has been fortified to the degree that no sentiment of mine can penetrate. I’m happy she’s alive. Can I just be happy for a time, please?”  
  
“You’re handing over weapons to support her war. That will shift her opinion of you.”  
  
“I negotiated this perilous cargo into the hands of maroons because it was the only path I could see to guarantee your safety. I’m not going to lie on that count. She already thinks I am weak and given to personal appeasement over principles. This will confirm her measure of my failings. And, by now, she has doubtless been informed that I sailed out to attempt to see her alienated from this cause,” Silver mutters, rubbing his eyes. He reaches for his crutches, speaking nervously as he approaches. “In our earlier conversation, I may have miscalculated how seriously the laudanum--”  
  
“I meant what I said.”  
  
“If you need to retract anything, I’d prefer to hear it now.”  
  
“John, I love you. Now sit down and stop putting pressure on that damn thing,” Flint says, setting down the cup. He winces as the angle of extension tugs at the stitched cut on the front of his shoulder. It seems so insignificant beside what was later inflicted, but it’s a poignant reminder of his inability to disembark the ship so soon and reason with Madi in person. 

John settles by his legs, setting aside the crutches, and tentatively resting a hand on Flint’s calf beneath the cotton sheet. He speaks very softly. “I know you think I chose her love over yours. It was not so. I thought-- I thought if you could sentence me to endure her loss, then your love for me was the lesser affection. Hers I had heard, touched, tasted. Yours was… unspoken, undefined. It seemed the more likely to wither when our cause was spent, and leave me alone. I told myself it was no love at all.”  
  
“Are you trying to suggest you would have cooperated with my plan if I had been more overt with my inclinations towards you?” Flint asks coldly.  
  
“No. No. I’m not attempting to justify my actions. I-- I ordered them to apprehend you. I knew there would be violence,” Silver’s voice fails for a moment. The breakneck pacing has Flint sure this is a long ruminating outpour. “I tried to kill you. If I had succeeded, there’s no telling the monster I would have become. I couldn’t have lived with myself. I barely live with myself these days as is. But in that moment, when I had convinced myself you had no affection for me beyond utility, and that I had no utility in you, I didn’t want to kill you.”  
  
“Lofty sentiments indeed.”  
  
“I didn’t want you dead. Someone who could offer me nothing, and yet I cared what befell you. An enemy, and still I cared.”  
  
“Why are you telling me all this so urgently?” Flint asks, brow dropping in apprehension. “Is there a situation ashore?”  
  
“No, no. He’s fine, I promise. ...when I thought of losing you to the better man in Thomas, I felt as if I were shutting myself outside your light, and into the awful cold loneliness I have spent so long residing in. I’m still sorry I kept it from you for so long. I’m sorry I was so selfish. I lied to you in Savannah. It wasn’t a war of revenge that I feared losing, it was you. I love you. I know I’m not a good man like he is, but I love you, and you can make me better. You’ve already made me better, caring about you when I thought you were my foe, caring for Madi now, though I know she will never want anything more to do with me.”  
  
The confusion at John’s uncharacteristically jumbled speech abates abruptly. This is not a confession, it is a plea. “I’m not abandoning you for Thomas,” Flint says seriously. He pushes further upright, just enough that John instinctively reaches keep him reclined. James catches the hand that touches his chest, tightening his fingers around John’s trembling fist. The tight fist unlaces, turning, fitting palm to palm. James parts his lips to say more, but is interrupted by a knock at the door.  
  
“Not now,” John calls forcefully. Flint expected self-consciousness, or at least self-preservation. John seems beyond it. Their fingers remain intertwined, relishing the warmth of one another’s skin.  
  
“John.”  
  
Flint jerks upright at Thomas’ stern voice. 

He sees Silver flickering with some dark sentiment as the door swings open. Thomas is unusually impolite, stepping into the great cabin with no permission granted. James absorbs every inch of the man before him. Thomas looks exhausted, sleepless bruises beneath both eyes, once fine clothing in careless creases. He crosses the room in strides, kneeling beside James’ bed with no hesitation for Silver’s presence, or the moment of intimacy they were caught in. Thomas takes James’ other hand, burying his wet eyes against the skin of his palm.  
  
“James. James,” he mumbles, eloquence all spent. He presses his lips into the skin and looks up, broken with tears. James doesn’t let go of Silver’s hand, but Silver attempts to retreat in lesser ways, shuffling back on the bedding, looking away. Thomas reaches up to smooth back James’ hair. They are face to face, studying every detail, drinking each other in. Thomas blinks his overflowing eyes and gives a shaky laugh of relief. “Your letter was so beautiful and obtuse beyond anything I could believe of you. You thought I’d find comfort in any words written in your _blood_ ?”  
  
“I had no ink,” James mumbles raggedly. “Thomas. I’m sorry. About everything.”  
  
Thomas hushes him with a kiss to his open palm. “The only individual I must blame is myself. I perceived every link in the chain that winched you into mortal peril. John’s love for Madi. Your love for John,” Thomas whispers. John twitches at the plain wording. “I saw it all and I let you go. And you faced cruelty beyond measure, almost death.” Thomas pushes upright, leaning in to a deep kiss. James cannot breathe for the pleasure of Thomas’ lips, a pleasure he thought he would die before every again knowing. Thomas presses their foreheads together, lingering close.  
  
“I never wanted you to see me like that. Through that dark lens. As England sees me,” James whispers, cupping the lightly stubbled cheek.  
  
"I never will, James. _I know you_." 

Thomas breathes out deeply and turns a fraction, to regard John. “Thank you.”  
  
John nods stiffly. He becomes even more rigid as Thomas’ hand catches his wrist. James watches beyond fascination as Thomas’ fingers press insistently at the tanned skin. Thomas Hamilton touching John Silver. It’s as unnatural as the sun brushing through a constellation. “You’re a man of your word.”  
  
“I assure you he is not,” Flint murmurs, smiling through wet lashes.  
  
John turns to allow full view of the eye roll. “Says the man who impersonated another pirate, to the man who impersonated a colonial aristocrat,” he says beneath his breath. “But, no, I’m the untrustworthy party here.”  
  
Thomas raises an eyebrow, dropping his hold on Silver to wipe his eyes. “I may have lied about the name, but you misrepresent me. I had perfectly legitimate backing from the Guthries,” he murmurs fondly. It’s hypnotic, Thomas’ warmth. Flint can see Silver’s dark machinations crumbling.  
  
Flint’s brow creases at once. “How did you possibly convince the Guthrie family to bail out a motley collection of saboteurs and political dissidents?”  
  
“There was already great effort being undertaken in Philadelphia to ensure Max’s charges disappeared swiftly and silently. My distinguished legal advisor was taken aback to hear I, too, was aware of this obscure trial occurring in the West Indies. I approached the Guthrie matriarch with a coordinated strategy, certainly, but relied heavily upon her groundwork and her resources.”  
  
“You’re brilliant,” James whispers.  
  
“And _you_ somehow stretched an overnight trial into enough time to organize an entire army to rise up against Port Royal,” John says, squeezing his fingers. “And I suppose it falls upon me to mention my reforging of a maroon pirate alliance that razed Port Royal to ash, since I’d like someone to sing my praise.”  
  
James laughs gently, and then cannot restrain a wince when the jostling of his ribcage reignites injuries. Both Thomas and John flinch protectively towards him. He raises an eyebrow at the dual frowns of concern. “I’m fine.” 

Thomas takes the firm tone. “No, you’re not. You must rest.”  
  
“I’ve already slept an unnatural amount on this voyage.”  
  
“What is an unnatural amount, my love? More than four hours?” Thomas asks indulgently. “I didn’t say you needed to sleep, I said you needed to rest.”  
  
Flint shakes his head. “Please don’t go. I never thought I’d see you again. ...I never thought I’d see either of you again,” he adds, quieter.  
  
Thomas smiles. “We’ll be sitting right over here, going over inventories. Lie down,” he says, laying a hand on James’ chest.  
  
“ _We_ ?” John asks.  
  
“I’m representing the interests of the Windward Maroons in the division of assets.”  
  
John frowns.  
  
“I was a politician, John. This is not the first negotiation I have partaken in. The terms have already been established, I am simply overseeing the numbers considering the unjust, forced illiteracy that many of these men and women toil beneath. I’ll aim to tread on no toes.”  
  
John rubs his eyes, eyes flicking over to Flint, who gives a shrug and lowers himself down into the bedding.  
  
“You came all the way to Savannah to procure Thomas Hamilton’s help. Enjoy the full measure of it.” 

John reaches for his crutches, making his way over to the desk slowly. “There’s the ship’s manifest beforehand, and after, and I’ve itemized the discrepancy.”  
  
Thomas looks both over. “So you are discounting the armaments expended in the second assault.”  
  
James has the frown of one caught in deception. “We need functioning guns to reach Nassau safely. You’ll be on the ship, as will Fli-- as will James.”  
  
“I don’t criticize your need for them, only the method of accounting. You could have been more upfront.”  
  
Silver’s lips purse tight. “Fine. Take the difference out of my share.”  
  
“I can do that, if you desire it, but I’d much prefer to believe you’re actively invested in your own future, John. You can’t go anywhere now,” he says, softly.  
  
“That should make it easier to negotiate,” Flint says.  
  
Both men turn to him in confusion. He points through the wall. “You’re being boarded. I’d assume that’s The Revival. Or it’s the Royal Navy, and your lookout is so tragically incompetent that they failed to alert you. Which is not beyond belief.”  
  
John squints in the direction Flint is pointing him. “How can you hear that?”  
  
“A measure of competence, paired with not being so embroiled in flirting to lose sense my surroundings?”  
  
Thomas chuckles, while John frowns.  
  
“I think I preferred him on the laudanum,” John mutters, reaching for his crutches.  
  
“I take it from this account that Rackham’s men have the Guthries’ deposit?” Thomas asks, flipping through papers.  
  
“I saw them loading it. They’ll hand it over,” John says, though the certainty rings false. 

Flint sits more upright, head tilted. “You can ask him in person. They’re coming this way.”  
  
“What a fine parlour trick,” Silver says under his breath.  
  
There’s a smart rap on the door.  
  
“Come in,” Silver calls.   
  
James feels he should be more nervous of Thomas being in the room with these pirates, but there’s no rush of defensive anxiety at Rackham’s freshly shaven visage. And then behind him, there’s Anne, back in her coat and loose trousers. Again, he wonders why he isn’t more afraid. Thomas could easily ire either opposing party with his stringency of negotiation. Neither arrival acknowledge him beyond a glance. The door swings again, and three more enter. The maroon faction, he assumes. A fierce woman with dreadlocks piled on her head, another older man Flint doesn’t recognize, and finally Roje.  
  
Roje is the first to look his way, with a wide grin. “You don’t die so easy, hm?”  
  
Flint gives a closed lip smile. He sits further upright, folding his arms as much as he can without his back screaming protest. He would have never let so many people see him in such a reduced state, but those whose opinion he cares about have seen him far more pathetic than this. He’s determined to hear the outcome of this conversation, lest negotiations begin to deteriorate.  
  
“Sorry. I would have had someone bring in a table if I’d known this was to be a conference,” Silver says, voice tinged with discontent.  
  
Jack hands over paper to Silver. “Here is our haul. It has been thoroughly gone over by these men, but if you desire to expend more of our valuable decampment time on double-checking, by all means, take yourself across to our hold.”  
  
“These are correct?” Thomas asks Roje. Jack frowns between them.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Good man,” Thomas murmurs, taking the pages from Silver. “There is one issue, of the expended powder and shot used in the raid.”  
  
Jack begins disbelievingly. “--the expended-- we all expended it. Pirates, maroons, we were all involved in blowing Port Royal to pieces. Would you like me to sail back and pry the cannonballs out of Fort Charles?”  
  
“Your victory in Port Royal would not have been possible without the additional complement of maroons. This was not a mission of passion, but of necessity to recover their confiscated armaments. It was the accord that all collected--” Thomas begins.  
  
“I know. I was there, I negotiated the damn accord. Why do we have a fucking lawyer here? We know how to split a prize without--”  
  
“Jack,” Anne says sharply.  
  
“Fine. Fine, well, we’ll need supplies for our return to Nassau,” Jack says, folding his arms. “So. I suppose an exchange is in order.” 

Thomas nods. He steps away, in hushed conversation with the three maroons, before returning to the desk the pirates are clustered about.  
  
“Fortunately, some acquired assets have more value to an isolated community than as fenced goods. I believe that we could discount a third of the purchase price of the necessary shot and powder to restock both ships if the payment were in the equivalent value of foodstuffs. I see that you have listed refined sugar as a significant portion of your haul. I’m sure that Mr. Silver, with his expertise in market transactions, could do the necessary calculations to see equity restored.”  
  
Jack sniffs. “Half.”  
  
“A third of the value discounted. Or in full, in coin.”  
  
He glances to Anne, who narrows her eyes back at him and shrugs blithely. “Fine.”  
  
“Thank you. And there’s the matter of the Guthrie money that should be returned.”  
  
“I know better than to draw the ire of that particular family,” Jack says quietly. “My men have already placed it in your hold.”  
  
Thomas smiles. “I suppose all that’s left is for you gentlemen to split the remaining prize equitably between your vessels. Thank you, Jack,” he says, extending a hand.  
  
Jack’s jaw is locked for a moment, affronted by the sudden friendliness, and then reaches out and shakes it. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, but I have a nasty premonition I was just bilked.”  
  
“Do you expect to have trouble with your men over it?”  
  
“No,” Jack replies tersely, eyes narrowing before he seems to register the question is in good faith. “No, they’ll drink copiously in celebration and ignore anything close to our mathematical calculations. This is doubtless the second largest prize they’ve ever captured, the first being the full contents of a Spanish treasure galleon. I’m sure this paltry concession will scarcely register.”  
  
“Good. I do not wish to cause you trouble in that regard. However, I must fervently pursue the interests of the party I am negotiating on behalf of. ...I’ll be going ashore, to discuss this with the maroon counsel. Is there any messages you would like relayed?” Thomas asks generally, though Flint is certain that the words are purely for Silver. After a few beats of silence, he nods politely and departs. James is loathe to see Thomas’ back, but his own investment in Madi’s success has him pleased by Thomas’ efficiency. The maroons leave too, Roje giving a jaunty salute in his direction. James closes his eyes with a grim smile.   
  
He wishes Madi had come aboard, but he doesn’t blame her for not wanting to see Silver right now. And she, too, needs this transaction over as soon as possible; two anchored ships flagging the location of the maroons’ camp is an untenable hazard.

“How did _they_ get a fucking lawyer?” Jack asks as soon as the door clicks closed.  
  
John gives a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose we should divvy up whatever scraps he’s left us with.”  
  
James smiles into his bedding. He surrenders full attention, listening idly as the two back and forth on valuations of the stolen goods. He’s half asleep when he hears footsteps coming his way. 

Anne appraises him closely, leather clad arms folded tight over her chest. Jack and John both glance nervously, but they resume their conversation. Anne clears her throat before she speaks. “Wasn’t personal, her agreeing to testify. They moved us to the women’s block, and that fucking navy man came in saying that we needed to prove we were willing to reform or we’d hang too. She told me they’d kill you before the week was out anyway. She’d seen piracy trials in Port Royal before. Said the whole thing was a fucking farce, and we might as well buy as much time as we could for ourself.”  
  
Flint watches her closely, and then shifts his legs, giving her space to sit. She frowns, but lowers down. Her back is hunched tight, and she’s no longer meeting his eye.  
  
“She didn’t make it,” Flint tests.  
  
“I woulda broken her out too if I’d known they were gonna torch the warehouse right fucking beside,” Anne says softly. “I was angry, but I didn’t--” she abandons the rest of the sentence to bleak silence, glaring at her own hands.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“I killed him,” she says, softer still.  
  
“The doctor?” Flint asks, with grim satisfaction.  
  
She shakes her head. “The man that got her to testify. The one who had you whipped in the street like a fucking animal.”  
  
Flint’s lips part with surprise. “You killed St. Coe?”  
  
“All his men were taking off for the fort. He was getting ready to barricade himself into that building, the fucking coward,” she mutters, eyes distant.  
  
“Thank you,” Flint says, uncertain.  
  
“ ...heard you’d been hanged. Seemed like someone should pay for it,” she says.  
  
They give over to silence, the other logistical conversation filtering over as Silver and Rackham continue their accounting. Flint studies the young woman. “Your slate is cleared, Anne. England believes you and Jack to be dead. I urge you to maintain that state of affairs. ...you have people who love you. If that cannot suffice, nothing ever will.”  
  
Anne opens her mouth to reply, but there’s a knock on the door interrupting her. 

“Come in,” Silver says with a hint of nervousness. He must be expecting Madi, but it’s not her. Max steps inside, set upon an undeniable path. Anne is on her feet to meet her, and they lock into a fierce embrace. They kiss, and Max buries herself in Anne’s shoulder, wracked with sobs. She’s murmuring words that Flint cannot pick.  
  
Silver is clearly unamused by his quarters opening to the public, but has the tact to not disturb Bonny in her reunion.  
  
Jack sets down the papers, a long look in Anne and Max’s direction. His expression is unfathomable, but he steps close, and lays one hand on Anne’s shoulder, and the other on Max’s back. He speaks softly without looking over his shoulder. “I trust your fairness in this regard, Silver. If you’ll hand the finalized sum to my quartermaster, my men will assist the redistribution. ...if you’ll excuse us.”  
  
“Of course,” Silver obliges. Together, inseparable, they depart. Silver sags heavier against the desk he's supporting himself upon.  
  
“Come here,” James instructs.  
  
Silver looks over unhappily. “I have to finish this.”  
  
“Do it over here.”  
  
Silver frowns, reaching for the crutches, awkwardly making his way over. James can see how exhaustion is setting in to the younger man’s taut shoulders. Silver sits by his legs, tucking amongst the piled bedding. He tries to write, but can’t concentrate. “You made a lot of friends whilst imprisoned.”  
  
“I’m as surprised as you are,” Flint murmurs. He reaches over, taking the paper from John. “I’ve split prizes a hundred times. Close your eyes for a moment.”  
John is dissatisfied at first, but can formulate no worthwhile rejoinder. He eases backwards, exhaling, lashes flickering shut. “Will you two go back to Savannah?”  
  
“Would you come to Savannah with us?”  
  
John’s eyes startle open. “Of course. If…”  
  
Flint fixes a miscalculation that John had made, and looks down with one eyebrow raised. “If what?”  
  
John’s affect is rich with insecurity. “If you’d have me.”


	15. Chapter 15

James instantly recognizes the horse tethered to the front gate. A black, muscular beast, on the squatter side. Perfect for John’s dismount even without crutches, though his ankle injury had necessitated transport by carriage thus far. Purchased from the Musgroves, where it has again resided these past weeks whilst John has been to sea.   
  
His return comes several days early, according to the last estimate in his plain-worded, chaste letter.   
  
James finds himself rushing, unloading his bags and leading both horses about to the stable as John had apparently been too impatient to do. There’s warm light filtering into the curled and bursting garden. The side window is cracked open into the warm night air; he hears the melodic smatter of the two men conversing within. He hurries back about, kicking off his shoes. The voices stop, anticipating his arrival. Both men face him across their dining table, shoulder to shoulder, teacups giving steam off in lacy expressions. Thomas is upright with attention, fingers resting upon an open envelope cast aimlessly beyond eyeline. 

Thomas Hamilton has aged in the few months, James thinks. After the harrowing experience in Port Royal has come grinding, grey hardship. His once boundless work in Savannah is now crawling. Men who he had considered like-minded, or at least malleable to higher thinking, had revealed themselves to be only incremental improvements upon the bleak tyranny of England. Thomas’ efforts to establish a school for Muscogee children have been counterproductive, with the burgeoning institution hijacked by as a tool of indoctrinating the local tribes. Thomas’ efforts to see a colonial charter favourable to social equity seems beyond reach. And to Thomas’ frantic dismay, there has been talk amongst new immigrants of restoring slave labour as an economic necessity. Beyond Savannah, the swell of movement from the Quakers had reached no sympathetic authority. Slavery is blossoming infectiously through the New World.   
  
Still, Thomas’ tired bearing is warmed by the arrival.  
  
John is wearing the loose, open necked shirt of a pirate and not a decent civilian. James hopes he wore a coat when disembarking through the port. There’s no need to draw additional attention to their strange living arrangements. John sets down the tea in his hand, pushes in half-devoured thickly buttered bread set before him. There’s no smile. If James had notion to cross the room and embrace him, it perishes at John’s unemotive expression. 

“You’re returned early,” James remarks casually.    
  
“My business was concluded.”  
  
James sets down his bag, shuffling through it to remove several items of food. He ducks to the kitchen to store them, expecting conversation to reinitiate. It does not. He presses the canned vegetables to the back of the dry store cupboard, and returns warily.  
  
“Should I sit down--”  
  
“I spoke with Madi.”  
  
“Ah.” Flint crosses his arms. “So, when do you return to Nassau?”  
  
“What?” Silver’s eyes narrow, then shakes his head dismissively. “You gave her the location of the cache.”  
  
“Of course I did. It never belonged to me, but to a cause.” He sits, perplexed by Silver’s even facade. “I do not invite your opinion on that matter.”  
  
“When do you ever invite my opinion?” John retorts under his breath. He breathes out, fingers pinching tight the bridge of his nose.  
  
“Luckily our days of levelling guns at each other are drawn to close,” Thomas intervenes. “John,” he prompts further. James leans in, curious of the shared knowledge.  
John’s hand falls. He grimaces around the relayed information: “She came to warn me. When they landed off that accursed island, a man swum aboard to their ship, begging passage and food. A pirate, who claimed to be one Richard Tucker. He claimed to be my close friend. Apparently the use of my name bought him passage to the closest English port.”  
  
“Tucker?” Flint murmurs, sifting through previously undisturbed memories. “He was a Walrus crewman. ...on the gun crew,” he hazzards.  
  
“He was never on any gun crews,” Silver mutters with a hint of exasperation. “Tucker was among the dead. I saw his body myself. Besides of which, the man was described as far taller than Tucker ever was. Very thin, but strong.” Silver pauses there, collecting the viscous hatred already spilling out over the syllables. “Billy Bones survived, somehow. He was on that island. Now he is loose upon the West Indies.” 

James swears under his breath, standing abruptly. “Is Madi--”  
  
“Madi is surrounded by an army. She has returned to the depths of Jamaica’s interior, to a concealed camp not known to even the Royal Navy. Billy is insignificant to her, I am reassured. You know I would not have left otherwise. Besides, I do not see that he had particular quarrel with her. You and I, on the other hand,” Silver gives off to a dark, overhead glower. “I cannot hold this against you. How could you have foreseen his survival?” he murmurs under his breath, eyes still glued to the roof.  
  
“You believe Billy knows better than the stories of my demise.”  
  
“I cannot see how he could. And yet, the possibility has me stricken.”  
  
Flint blows out a breath. “The survivors on the Walrus all must have spread word of his treason against his own brothers. He’s not stupid enough to set foot in Nassau so soon. So, information will be scant.”  
  
John leans his head against the tabletop, exhausted. “He will be wary of association with any crews who may know him. I have asked Israel to--to apprehend him should he come inquiring after me, and I was careful to obscure my current whereabouts. I spoke of returning to England.”  
  
“Who is Billy Bones?” Thomas asks with a frown.  
  
“A traitor,” James answers before John can.  
  
“And you believe this hatred of you is motive enough to inspire violent revenge, should he establish your survival?”  
  
“I cannot imagine limits of his loathing of Captain Flint,” John mutters. “And he certainly has a score to settle with me, though he will heed me better than reckless pursuit.”  
  
“If he thinks you killed me, he will be somewhat placated on that count,” Flint muses. His shoulders sag for a moment. “Nevertheless, I must finish this before either -”  
  
“No,” Thomas and John both interject.  
  
“As I see it, our other option is to endure his threat in perpetuity.”  
  
“I sold the the tavern in Nassau.”  
  
Flint is momentarily troubled by the fact that John hadn’t done so sooner. A back-up plan, he surmises. Coming from a place of insecurity rather than distrust. He finds that far easier to forgive. “And…?”  
  
“And liquidated other stashed funds,” John says, languishing in voyage to his real point. “The haul from Port Royal. My stake in The Caduceus, bought out in coin. I have wealth enough to strike afield, now that Savannah is compromised as a location of enduring peace.”  
  
“John,” Thomas prompts, or perhaps challenges.  
  
“I’ve journeyed to the Rhode Island colony to establish a warehouse,” he admits quietly. “And I have trusted intermediates in Nassau who will sell on products of New Providence’s booming farming community. I will be tradesman again.” 

“Rhode Island,” Thomas murmurs, a fine frown line etching deeper between his faintly greying brows.  “A community of the religiously persecuted who have, in turn, become the most vile exploiters of the less fortunate. Of slaves of the West Indies and the Africas. Of Madi’s people,” he adds, good nature departing his tone. James remembers the light caress that Thomas’ rhetoric once was. The parlour of Park Place was far removed from the suffering he has since observed. Now Thomas knows the horrible consequences of the policies he’d once only theoretically opposed in his aristocratic circle. There is harshness to his convictions now. James admires it and mourns the innocence he once knew.  
  
“As you say, it is home to great, sprawling, _powerful_ Quaker families,” John rebuts, rubbing his eyes. “If you wish to attempt to influence only the morally pure and perfectly ideologically aligned, your cause is naught but a philosophical thought experiment. If you want to shape the course of the New World, I’d suggest engaging with susceptible powerbrokers, rather than the simpering doctrinaires you hold court with here. You of all people should see that radical beliefs are not indicative of ability to implement radical change.”  
  
Thomas has turned further, skewering Silver with close observation. “A well-rationed argument that seems utterly removed from your motives regarding this relocation.”  
John returns the confrontational posture. “You’re quite correct that my own motives differ. Madi pointed out to me that if I were to relocate to Rhode Island, I would be well equipped to ingratiate myself with the principal opposition to any treaty being signified that gives the Maroons rights to peacefully exist. A certain James Brown with interests all over the West Indies, and an eye to expanding the scope of slavery across every colony therein,” John states flatly. “If I can establish a business association with him, I can send information to Madi’s contacts in Nassau with my shipments. I can keep her safe.” 

Thomas regards him in softer focus. “Is that what you plan on doing, John?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And what brought about this cataclysmic shift?” James asks, relieved to see the tension between both men dissipated.  
  
John shrugs. Thomas and James have locked eyes in a mute exchange, and Silver smiles wryly at the apparent trepidation. “Spent too much time around those with real moral compasses?” he suggests. His face falls a little at his own self-deprecation, and he picks up his dirtied plate. “You have time to weigh your futures. I need rest,” he murmurs, excusing himself with a nod. James watches him exit the kitchen, a slight grimace of indecision at his retreating figure. At least he’s off crutches and back to just the cane.   
  
Thomas rises, and he stands behind James with both hands brushing his shoulders. The scars still trouble him, though the delicate touch of his lover is very welcome over the perpetually crawling scarred skin. James sags with it. He’d been anticipating a far more pleasant reunion with John.  
  
“It’s very odd, how he so readily becomes a fixture. I missed him,” Thomas murmurs plainly, deep in thought. “I’ve known him not four months, and the thought of his departing from our home troubles me greatly.”  
  
“You missed him?” James asks, surprised. He twists his neck to look up. Thomas is dreamily fixated on his bookshelf.  
  
“I did. Not just sympathetically, as entwined as our emotional well-being now is. John builds himself into the scenery of whatever setting he involves himself in. It seems effortless, even subconscious. Perhaps his contentment is only reached when he feels himself irreplaceable. ...he began to feel a part of our home. My essays are not nearly as good without the perfect Devil’s advocate to duel with.” 

“I’m not to standard?”  
  
“You’re very good at arguing that which you believe in, and barely scraping mediocrity when you adopt convictions for the sake of rhetorical exploration,” Thomas murmurs, brushing fingers through James’ hair. None gladder than his lover that the tincture of walnut faded without lasting damage to the auburn beneath. “It’s not a fault, love. I appreciate that your beliefs are distinct and true. But John and his damned ability to contend the most inarguable of positions…” he trails off. “I knew a man, Strickland, considered the best debater Oxford ever produced. An orator beyond belief. We called him Cicero. Went into politics for the Whigs. I would have liked to see John contend. I would predict a victory for the young pirate. And with no formal schooling. Just like Miranda. She longed to attend a great college,” he murmurs. “It’s all she wanted to know about when we were first introduced. Class structures and reading materials and the current thinking of the establishments. What is a purchased education beside genuine desire for mental improvement? ...I wonder if John read much before his arrival in West Indies.”  
  
James shrugs, uncomfortable with the mystery for a moment. “John isn’t really a pirate.”  
  
“I see that,” Thomas remarks cryptically. “So, Rhode Island,” he returns circumspectly to the matter at hand. “Do you have a ballot you’d like to cast with a different nomination for our destination?”  
  
“You’d leave Savannah?”  
  
“Of course. I can see your concern about this man, Bones, is in the threat he poses to John and I. You are again neglecting to factor in that his foulest grudge is ostensibly against you, and I have no desire to see you hurt again,” Thomas murmurs, and he leans down. There is a firm message to his kiss, a warning of consequences should he endanger himself again.  
  
James breathes out, as Thomas straightens upright again. “I cannot push you facedown into the cruelty of the world and expect your goodness to go unscathed. You will see cruelty and ambivalence in Rhode Island that you cannot hope to sway,” James whispers. “You are already so burdened, here, where you have found compassionate men to work beside.”  
  
Thomas reads him so thoroughly and kindly that James’ feels an artist’s muse. Perhaps more vulnerable than a posed nude: he is struck so open that all dark internals are exposed to air. “He’s quite correct, you know. No lasting change is brought about from intellectual isolationism. ...I doubt he’s sleeping. He was telling me before you arrived how dull he finds sea voyages when he has no crew to wrangle and no reckless captains to contain. He’s well-rested.”  
  
James scoffs under his breath at the hardly veiled barb. “He may well want peace.”  
  
“Peace from me. He was hoping you would follow him to bed.”  
  
“I saw no inclination to that end.”  
  
“You weren’t here when he arrived. He was rabid for inconsequential details about you, even as he did his best to feign interest in my progressing failures here in Savannah. He wanted to known precisely how you’d taken his absence.”  
  
“And what did you tell him?”  
  
“That you missed him deeply,” Thomas says, staring into James’ eyes. “Come.”  
  
James frowns, but Thomas has his hand, and is leading him down the darkened corridor. There is silence behind the closed door.  
  
“He’s resting,” James offers in hushed protest.  
  
Thomas knocks on the door to what was the spare room, now occupied with John’s meagre possessions.  
  
“Come in,” comes a cautious, alert tone.  
  
Thomas drops the entwined grip on James’ fingers, presses the door inward and gives an expectant look back. James reluctantly follows.  
  
“I hope we’re not disturbing you,” Thomas remarks politely.  
  
“No,” John says quickly. He’s sat by the small desk in the corner, lamp flickering above a half-written letter. His face is slate blank, tense with effort. “You’ve thoughts about Rhode Island, I gather.”  
  
“We can begin packing tomorrow.”  
  
It’s obviously not the response Silver expected. He leans back in his chair, flickering attention between the men stood in his doorway. Then, in a nervous sprint, he speaks. “I purchased a farmhouse, on a small orchard between settlements. It will need some work done, but it is perfectly livable for the time being. It’s for the two of you.”  
  
“But not for you?”  
  
“I’ll be spending a lot of my time in Providence on business. I have imposed upon the two of you quite long enough.”  
  
James frowns. “So you’re to be our landlord in absentia?”  
  
“I’d very much like to still… spend time with the both of you,” John offers, finally meeting James’ eyes. 

“You think you can make yourself so small and unassuming that we will never grow weary of you?” James says, a little harshly.  
  
John’s eyes jerk down, the hurt being shrouded at once.  
  
“John, we don’t _want_ you out of our house,” James growls frustrated.  
  
“Darling--” Thomas begins, an equally light touch at the small of his back.  
  
“No. I want him to be plain with me. You do not wish to share a home with us.”  
  
“That’s not it,” John returns sharply.  
  
“Then stop this engineering of other’s lives into that you have _presumed_ to be in their interests, John.”  
  
“James,” Thomas reproaches. The accusation had been straying. “He means that he does not want you to drive this preemptive wedge into your futures,” Thomas murmurs.  
  
“I wasn’t--” John frowns himself away from the excuse. He picks his words carefully. “Thomas, you have the patience of a saint, but I have an awful habit of pushing even the most virtuous to unspeakable acts. If I cement myself in your lives, I do not see how the goodwill can hold. Even for James’ sake.”  
  
“I suppose I misspoke. It is a wedge into our futures. I consider you a close friend, and I would be deeply saddened to think that you see me as only a rival to be avoided,” Thomas says softly. He crosses the room, and lays a hand on John’s shoulder. The two talk often, but it’s the first instance James can remember of deliberate contact since the Port Royal affair. 

John looks up with light grimace of concentration. An attempt to assign an ulterior motive to Thomas’ sentiment. It’ll be in vain. Thomas would never sink to such a deception. “You’re sure?”  
  
“I’m sure. James?”  
  
“Yes. We leave this place together,” he replies, voice gravelly with emotion.  
  
John pushes upright, leaning on the desk. He’s near a head shorter than the composed, thoughtful man standing so close to him. Silver himself is breathless with wonder. “We’re friends,” he speaks out weakly.  
  
James’ heart is outstripping his body, til his spine shudders with the rush. He watches his own personal eclipse occuring once more before him. Thomas’ hand has migrated to Silver’s collar, resting open palm on bare skin. Silver is leaning in a fraction. Every touch is off celestial significance. Silver’s eyes flicker back to where James lingers in the doorway, a hint of performance in how he leans in. It evokes a flicker of concern, but not enough to intervene. Thomas seems occupied with gentle curiosity. Then their lips meet. A small pressing kiss. The image illuminated from below by wafting yellow radiance. James’ knees nearly buckle.  
  
Thomas is still touching Silver as he turns. “Come here.”  
  
“Must I?” James asks, reticent to impede his view.  
  
“How did you make lieutenant when you take orders so discretionarily,” Thomas murmurs.  
  
“Orders?” James echoes.  
  
“Come here,” Thomas insists.  
  
This time he does. 

Silver is bristling with nerves, fidgeting his shirt flat. There’s a tremble in the beringed forefinger as it smooths a fold of linen. They’ve been intimate three times, unforgettable occasions, but tentative with their mutual limiting injuries. Any further exploration was brought up short by John’s departure for Nassau. It feels an age since, and James is now uncomfortable taking hold of the man who he should rightly think of as a lover. Luckily, John shoots out a hand for support, catching his shirt collar, dragging him in close.  
  
Thomas watches it all intently. “You don’t need to do anything to belong with us,” he says very seriously.  
John is blasé in the face of Thomas’ concern. His lips collide urgently with James’. He has forgone the propriety he normally demonstrates in front of Thomas. This kiss is reflexive on James’ part, matching the frantic passion. His lips are open, the scratch of Silver’s moustache against his nose, John’s teeth at his bottom lip.  
  
“I missed you,” John whispers out into the hot air of shared breath.  
  
“And I you. I don’t wish to live so apart from you, John Silver.”  
  
There’s an unevenness to the footing of the man before him. John’s weight is unsteadily borne upon the collar of his shirt through the clutching grip. Thomas takes John’s shoulder again. “You should think this over and--”  
  
“No. No more damn thinking. I have worried myself sleepless night after night in absence,” John insists. “Poured more thought into our futures than could benefit any of us. Tortured myself with possibility. I just want to-- to live, now.”  
  
Thomas’ brow creases, but understanding settles in shortly thereafter. He takes hold of John, leading his weight back towards the bed. He kisses him again. There is a marked difference. Between these men, the kiss has a lightness, an exploratory tinge. Thomas settles on the edge of the firmly made up bed. John hovers before he settles down too. 

“James,” Thomas reproaches gently.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“You’re staring again,” Thomas murmurs with a tugging smile. He has a loose handful of Silver’s hair, raising the curls gently to expose the tanned strain of neck muscle.  
  
“Am I?”  
  
“Yes,” John growls, though he trails off with a soft sigh. Thomas’ lips have pressed into his neck. He shoots an accusatory look in James’ direction. James’ lips part to defend himself, that this was not his orchestration. It all dries away from his tongue in lieu of silent reverie at the visual feast before him.  
  
“Is this okay?” Thomas asks John. James remembers much the same when he and Thomas first made love: the perfect gentleman, especially in that regard. He verbalizes himself shamelessly. A sharp contrast to Silver who wants to discuss nothing, seems pained by any need to put desires to words.   
  
The response is as expected, Silver nodding grimly, turning sharply to kiss Thomas silent. Silver seems to be wrestling back control of the situation, for all his earlier shock. James can see his jaw working, tongue in Thomas’ mouth, sitting up and holding him by the shirt as if in a scuffle. Thomas is perfectly pliant for a few moments, and then just as suddenly is back dictating position, turning John about and pulling him back onto the bed. He tugs his own shirt over his head, and then with deft fingers sheds John’s, already a little sticky with perspiration in the warm evening. Thomas is far paler, though hard labour for years and his constant tending to their own garden has left him a very different physique to the slim figure of Lord Hamilton, whose exercise rarely exceeded carrying heavy tomes off high shelves. John is still marked with tan, perhaps renewed by his recent voyage. He’s blessed still by the shape of youth, retaining muscle easily, a leather necklace of wooden beads in the dip of his chest. It could be a Maroon ornament. Then both shirtless men are looking up at James expectantly.

“Are you unwell?” John asks impatiently.  
  
“I can’t see you both so clearly if I’m too close,” he remarks, though attempt at a standoffish affect falls short. Every syllable scrapes with lust, as a scarcely allowed fantasy plays before him. His neck prickles with anticipation, and his breeches are certainly not thick enough fabric to disguise the effect this is having upon him. He wonders how much of is an exhibition to his benefit, but isn’t allowed time to have a crisis of conscience.   
  
Thomas beckons him forward. He steps swaying to the bed, a small wooden frame with barely enough room for the two well-built men reclined upon it. He is about to suggest a move to the main bedroom, but is interrupted by Thomas’ hand on him, loosening the laces of his trousers and tugging the undrawn fabric off his hips. John is guided forward, with Thomas again leaning to kiss his neck. John looks up, wide blue eyes hesitating. James grits his teeth with indecision, sharply concerned for signals of unwillingness. But then Silver gasps and James can think about nothing but the sound.   
  
A glance down the bed reveals Thomas’ wrist dipped into beneath his trousers. Thomas is enfolding John’s back, and smiling up at James indulgently as his cheek rests at John’s tilted jawline. There’s a clarity to his gaze that James is incapable of returning from his haze of desire. And then John is leaning forward urgently, his lips dewy and parted. His tongue shows pink for a moment, darting over his bright wet teeth. 

John can be so barbed and shrouded, but all armor is cast aside in this act. Now he is inescapably soft. Even Thomas’ composure has slipped. Flint reaches down to brush back curls, huffing out anticipation. John’s mouth closes over the head of his cock. The heat contained behind his stretched lips is perfectly welcoming. James finds himself incapable of looking anywhere but the point of contact. Then John is breathing faster, nose flaring, as Thomas regains focus on the younger man’s pleasure. After the consummate eroticism of Thomas and John’s kisses, James is glad that John’s attention is belayed. He doesn’t want the experience over too soon. He watches John huff, sheened with glittering sweat, and slide his lips down further over sensitive skin.   
  
The dark eyebrows occasionally twitch, and his concentration is stuttering. Thomas is very orientated towards his partner’s enjoyment, and James is pleased to see Silver coming apart. Not so invulnerable to Thomas’ charm after all. Then any smugness is gone, because John’s tongue is lathing wet against his prickling, sensitive skin. Silver draws back, pressing an open-mouthed kiss into his hip, growling with somewhere between annoyance and pleasure.  
  
“Take that fucking shirt off,” he orders in a wrecked tone.  
  
Flint tugs it off, and in reward, John’s mouth is back on him. John’s head bobs, rhythm broken by the occasional ragged panting. 

James mumbles praise, but is largely lost for words, for thought, raw with joy. He is rushed headlong into experience as inexorably as if tossed to a riptide. He grunts out pleasure and tightens his fingers unconsciously into dark curls. As he finishes, Silver’s lips are pressed against him in every wave of blinding euphoria. The younger man’s eyes are closed, and he’s groaning softly with pleasure also. Suction breaks with a wet snick of sound, and John is arched and shuddering, then falling backwards loose-limbed and picturesque as a martyred saint. Thomas holds him tightly through it, wrapping his other bare arm around John’s chest in a caring embrace. He shuffles back to accommodate James on the bed, though it has all three piled together on the slim mattress. James lies on his side, a hand tracing Silver’s still heaving chest, toying with a carved bead. He trails upwards, reaches out for Thomas’ cheek, gratitude overwhelming his words. He licks dry lips. “Thank you. Thank you, both of you.”  
  
“Should I begin feigning selflessness now?” Thomas asks dryly.  
  
He’s met with a spent chuckle from John, who rolls upright. “You’ve been appallingly selfless as of yet. Someone ought to bring you down a peg.” 

“If seeing my lov-- ah,” Thomas breathes, as John’s hand reaches his inner thigh.  
  
James cannot repress a smug twitch of raised eyebrow. He leans forward, kissing Thomas’ chin and the light stubble across his jaw. He tucks low against Thomas, kissing his lips only once, determined to hear the poise drop away from his voice. He reaches down to do what he suspects is a line further than Silver would cross at his most bold. He’s surprised that he meets Silver’s hand, and fingers lace with firm intent. John is pushing apart Thomas’ knees, knelt between his legs, his free hand making quick work of the buttoned fly. His crouch is a little altered by his prosthetic now bears some weight, but he has adapted readily enough. Then, despite that his lips are already swollen and marred by a shiny smear, he ducks down, bobbing energetically.  
  
“You don’t need to--” Thomas begins in a deep voice flecked uncertainty, and then his hips jerk upwards. His polished accent sounds stranger around syllables of pleasure. A familiar sound to James, but he is normally not quite as cognizant when lovemaking. He kisses up Thomas’ stretched throat and watches Silver. He’s felt such himself, and suspects he was not Silver’s first foray into sexual encounters with men. He won’t ask. John has asked not to be bared to idle curiosity. He tries to dispel the unpleasant implication. It's too beautiful to be made awful with association. He has the image perfectly preserved in memoriam before the act is done. Thomas sighing a long vocal note, Silver hiding a grin behind his forearm as he wipes his lips. 

The bed is by far too narrow for all three to lie side by side, and James reluctantly hefts himself upright before Silver takes the excuse to move away.  
  
“Just lie down for a minute,” Thomas murmurs, eyes closed, serene beyond words.  
  
“Why not go to the bed that may actually accomodate all three of us?” James prompts.  
  
John looks up, expression frozen with shock.  
  
James raises an eyebrow, leaning to pick up his shed shirt, relacing his pants. “Unless you find that a step too far in this arrangem--”  
  
John jumps in before he is done: “No. ...thank you.”  
  
Thomas opens his eyes, a smile rising. He pulls himself upright, catching the shirt that James tosses his way. “You’re more than welcome. You’re _wanted_ ,” he informs John quietly.  
  
John pauses in gathering up his own shirt, stricken by the words. “I’ll be through in a moment,” he murmurs.   
  
James picks up the cane resting by the writing desk, leans it within reach. Then, tentatively, he leans down and rests a hand on Silver’s cheek. “Don’t be too long,” he says seriously, and then kisses him gently on the forehead.

Arm in arm with Thomas, they depart the John's room. Thomas breaks away to dim the lamps, shut the window. James continues on, filling a basin to wash his face, and the sweat from beneath his arms. He dries off with his shirt, and then that and his pants already dirtied from a day’s work are placed into the wicker hamper in the bedroom’s corner. Thomas does the same as he steps into the bedroom, arriving a hair-breadth from his lover.   
  
He presses skin on skin to James, joining an almost waltz across the bedroom. Thomas stoops to turn off the bedside light, kissing lines of scarring feather-light as he rises up behind James’ turned back. He ghosts over the expanse of skin with diligence and devotion that James cannot believe himself capable of deserving.  
  
James twists to meet Thomas’ eye. “You’re happy sharing our bed?”  
  
Thomas nods a reassurance, but then opens his mouth in explanation. “You spoke of the freedom of piracy, and how that drew you to the life you led. Perhaps that is so, perhaps you found yourself freer in some respects, but certainly not all. I can see the damage you have inflicted upon yourself denying your affection for John Silver. I want you to be truly liberated, James. That’s all I want from you. Your truest self. I would share all I have ever held close, to be gifted that in return.”  
  
“‘Know no shame’?” he quotes, and Thomas gives a tired smile.  
  
“How naive I was when I wrote those words. But from the mouth of babes,” he says quietly. “...I have never doubted your love for me. Never. I do not now.”  
  
James feels his eyes prickle. “Nor I yours,” he murmurs, and his head is against Thomas’ broad shoulder. Thomas encircles him, leads him into the bedding. He feels lips pressed against his tousled hair, Thomas supporting him into an embrace that keeps weight off his back. The light cotton sheets tangle upon their bare forms. He’s meditating upon Thomas’ level breathing when he hears Silver’s arrival. The uneven tread makes it to the doorway, and stops.  
  
“There’s plenty of room for you,” Thomas reassures.  
  
James turns, to see John redressed in clean linen breeches. He’s holding a small lamp in his hand, placing his indecision into sharp contrast. His crumpled brow is lines of bright highlights, and crevasses of violet toned shadow. Then he’s extinguishing the lamp, setting it aside on a dresser. There’s moonlight nestling in the dip of his sheened clavicle. He pulls the cover around himself as he dips in, leaning over to pull the strapping of his prosthetic away, setting it beside the bed. James rolls on his stomach, extends idle fingers. They touch Silver’s chest and feel his pulse underneath skin.   
  
Thomas holds his other hand, all certainty and composure. John takes the drifting hand, and kisses the scarred knuckles and holds them to his cheek.   
  
Outside, the darkness sings out with summer nightlife. A medley of breaths sounds within. Body heat emanates from the two men he loves. As gently as descending mist, every perfect detail is obscured by sleep.

 

 

A dream of whipping startles him awake, whereupon he realizes the pain is no phantom, and he has rolled onto his back. He rights himself with a grimace. The darting pain running over the shiny skin has him gritting teeth for several seconds. But he is beyond St. Coe’s cruelty: he is in bed with his loved ones, and that man is dead at Anne Bonny's hand. He climbs carefully over Thomas, knowing him to be the sounder sleeper, then looks back down at the disparate pair slumbering. He makes sure the curtain will obscure the dawn when it arrives, pulls on fresh clothing, and leaves both to rest.

 

 

It is hours later, after he's returned from tending to the animals and the garden, that he hears the uneven tread of John Silver.  
  
“You’re cooking,” John remarks redundantly, rounding into the kitchen.  
  
“Better me than you. Or Thomas for that matter,” James says, shooing John back to the dining room. “Sit down. I’ll bring it out. Don’t touch anything. Definitely do not try to season any of my pots again.”  
  
John has the gall to appear offended, but as he turns James catches the boyish grin. He hears Thomas’ arrival, and then the lightly awkward exchange from within:  
  
“We’re forbidden from the kitchen, lest we perform some dastardly act of sabotage.”  
  
“He can be very particular about his food,” Thomas returns. He hears the rattle of teacup upon saucer. “...though if I am greeted each morning with tea and hearty meals, I shall allow him his idiosyncrasies.”  
  
James is smiling as he steps through, carefully setting out the fried ham and pease pudding. “If you’d wake before midday perhaps you could fend for yourself.”  
  
“It’s barely past eight,” Thomas protests.  
  
John’s brow furrows. “There was an envelope on this table last night--”  
  
James picks it from the desk and hands it over. “I was simply clearing space.”  
  
“You should read it. I believe it was intended mostly for you.”  
  
He pauses in contemplation, finishes dividing up food and sits down. He picks up his tea, and then pulls open the folds of paper.   
  
It’s not a letter, as he was expecting. Part of it is a clipping of newspaper, reporting on the death of Jack Rackham in Port Royal. Details are wrong, and there is less about it being razed to the ground than he would have liked to be memorialized. He wonders if the powers that be had suppressed details assigning too much power to the pirate menace. There’s an unflattering caricature of a wild man with bristling hair and a beard that he did not have, gibbeted. There’s no mention of Mary, or of Anne. That evokes a satisfied smile, and he straightens the other enclosed paper, a messy note.  
  
_Jack won’t stop collecting these fucking clippings. You ought to have one. This one’s from England but we’re on the French Riviera now. We just bought a vineyard. Jack wants to open a hotel and Max doesn’t. She wants to go the rest of her life being nice to only the people she wants to be nice to._  
  
_I never figured why Jack taught me to read and write. Never thought I’d need it. If I had people I wanted to talk to, I would see them in person. But I don’t expect to ever see you again, so I wanted to say that you were right about knowing when you’ve got it good._  

“I thought it was for me. It was delivered to my tavern. I suppose she had the sense not to use your name.”  
  
“There’s nothing sensitive enclosed,” Flint says, folding the letter and the clipping away inside the envelope.  
  
“There’s a letter from Madi, too, but that one’s in my case. You’ll be able to write back, once we have established our intelligence connection. Her people can deliver it. She may even visit, if her position allows it,” Silver says, unable to keep the thrill from his voice. He’s already finished his plate, while James hasn’t started. He has no heed of manners, cutting more bread and dishing himself out an extra helping.  
  
James gives in to a warm smile, completely charmed. “Perhaps she does not think so poorly of you as you’ve often informed me?” he suggests.  
  
“Perhaps,” John says beneath his breath. When he looks up from his food, the wide blue eyes are hopeful, grateful. James hasn’t seen him so gloriously unburdened for a long, long time.  
  
“We’ll just have to keep a spare bedroom in our Rhode Island estate,” Thomas comments benignly.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this took so long. I hope not everyone has forgotten this story. It has not been a good month for me, and one of the symptoms of general despair tends to be despair at my writing ability.
> 
> Anyway, thank you to all the people who've read this story, left kudos, especially commenters. Special props to user onthysleeve for all the beautiful comments and meta and general conversations about Black Sails. ♥


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